KIRKUS REVIEW
Kids will flip over this one--it's funny, original, funny, enterprising, FUNNY, entertainment and if you look, closely, makes a couple of more serious points. It's about Buddy Williams, a kind of slow-moving boy with a sometime stammer and some of his friends--all origins--and their Boys Club in Dogtown. The club's about to be closed down when a rat in the drain of the swimming pool bites Buddy. Some adults will be closing down on this one after Mr. Hannibal, head of the Boys Club, says he'd rather his boys smoked pot than cigarettes since it ""doesn't crud up your lungs."" Anyway, the Boys Club has a chance, since it will inherit a great deal of money, $639,943,96, once the natural heir--a tomcat Buzzer Atkins--dies. He's in the care of a man called Shriker who seems to have extended his life eternally. Anyway Buddy suspects that Buzzer is not 28 years immortal, takes a picture from the library microfilm of the original, prompts an escape by releasing his replacement, digs up the box with the remains of not-so-old Buzzer Atkins, and is guilty of charges of trespassing and harassment. . . . Fat Cat's got lots of whiskers and the biggest smile in many a mystery.