History Literature / TheHermuxTantamoqAdventures

* CareerEndingInjury: It's not a "serious" injury per se, but Nurella Pinch's thick fur (especially her head fur/hair) falls out, forcing her to leave show business. ([[spoiler:Her baldness proves her identity when she appears in court in]] ''[[spoiler:No Time like Show Time]]''.)

* RetroUniverse: Ironically for a series centred around a watchmaker, and setting aside the fact that the series takes place in a MouseWorld—or rather, an alternate universe devoid of humans but where mice and other mammals live very human lifestyles—the time setting of the series is never specified. Although they use human terms for measurements of time, no years are ever specified, with all historical dates reckoned from the present (e.g. "n years ago").

* FantasticRacism: The various species of rodent have several stereotypic ideas about each other. Even Hermux is influenced by this at first, calling chipmunks "a clownish lot" and not believing a mole could be a {{Mad Scientist}}. He grows out of it eventually.

%%* MasterOfDisguise: Corpius Crounce... if that's even his real name.

* WorldOfMammals: Most of the sapient species in this world are various kinds of mammals—various rodents, carnivores like otters and cats, insectivores like hedgehogs and shrews, etc. Nonmammal species like birds and insects fulfil many of the niches that mammalian pets—and prey animals—fill in the RealLife human world.

%%* WhiteDwarfStarlet: Nurella Pinch.

* TheBeautifulElite: A lot of page time is spent in the MouseWorld's equivalent of high society, with classy, glamorous rodents & other mammals featured in detail. Their main city, Pinchester, is clearly modelled on UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, particularly Manhattan and the Upper East Side. [[note]]In some print editions, the typeface used for chapter headings even resembles the typeface used for the masthead of ''Literature/TheNewYorker'', if they're not in fact the same.[[/note]]

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Tucka, whenever she flirts with one of her men. At one time, she disguises herself as Killium's "cousin Keenkie". Seriously.

* {{Adorkable}}: Hermux, especially when Linka is involved.

'''The Hermux Tantamoq Adventures''', written by Michael Hoeye, are a series of children's detective novels set in a MouseWorld version of a modern-day city. The title character Hermux Tantamoq is a mild-mannered mouse watchmaker and AmateurSleuth who solves his cases with the help of his pet ladybug Terfle, his love interest Linka Perflinger, his mentor Mirrin Stentrill, and various colorful and endearing friends. His recurring adversary is his neighbor: a vain, self-centered cosmetics tycoon named Tucka Mertslin, whose moneymaking schemes and bad taste in men often land Hermux on her bad side.

** Mirrin (a mouse) and Birch (a chipmunk). It gets treated more or less like an interracial romance would have been in 1960's America, with Birch being the minority. At one point, when Birch suggests that Mirrin might be happier with someone of her own kind, we get a SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoment when she tells him:

* GenreSavvy: At one point Linka comments that Hinkum is "a little amateurish at this whole villain thing". He stole her plane's distributor... but having been burned before, she has a spare.

^* Androse [=DeRosenquill=], who is searching desperately for his lost son so he can take over the family perfume business.

** In Book 1, [[spoiler:IntrepidReporter mole Pup Schoonagliffen is none other than Dr Hiril Mennus in disguise... or maybe it's the other way around, no one can say]].

* TheBeautifulElite: A lot of page time is spent in the MouseWorld's equivalent of high society, with classy, glamorous rodents & other mammals featured in detail. Their main city, Pinchester, is clearly modelled on UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, particularly Manhattan and the Upper East Side. [[note]]In some print editions, the typeface used for chapter headings even resembles the typeface used for the masthead for ''Literature/TheNewYorker'', if they're not in fact the same.[[/note]]

* TheBeautifulElite: A lot of page time is spent in the MouseWorld's equivalent of high society, with classy, glamorous rodents & other mammals featured in detail. Their main city, Pinchester, is clearly modelled on UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, particularly Manhattan and the Upper East Side. [[note]]Some print editions even have chapter headings that use the same typeface as the masthead for ''Literature/TheNewYorker''.[[/note]]

* TheBeautifulElite: A lot of page time is spent in the MouseWorld's equivalent of high society, with classy, glamorous rodents & other mammals featured in detail. Their main city, Pinchester, is clearly modelled on UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, particularly Manhattan and the Upper East Side.

* CharacterDevelopment: Hermux learns to be more assertive and more aware of the beauty around him. Linka learns to never get caught in a trap without backup. Androse [=DeRosenquill=] learns to appreciate his family. Tucka, conversely, seems to get worse with every book; she goes from merely a nuisance who sometimes even helps Hermux (such as when she hires him to restore the mechanical mouse dancer) to an active accessory to murder. She's also become more cynical in regards to her love life: in ''The Sands of Time'', she was eager to marry Hinkum, and seemed genuinely hurt and upset when she found out the truth; in the later books, she uses men for her own interests alone.

* StayInTheKitchen: That is, to sell her beloved airplane and become the perfect hostess to advance his academic career. Linka is not happy about this, and neither is Hermux.

* FantasticRacism: The various species of rodent have several stereotypic ideas about each other; even Hermux is influenced by this at first, calling chipmunks "a clownish lot" and not believing a mole could be a {{Mad Scientist}}. He grows out of it eventually.
* FollowInMyFootsteps: Hermux, who inherited his watchmaking business from his father. Also Androse [=DeRosenquill=], who is searching desperately for his lost son so he can take over the family perfume business.

%%* HeroicBSOD: Hermux, briefly, when Terfle disappears.

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Hermux, in regards to Linka. Birch too, since when he found out he'd been declared legally dead, he decides to stay away from Pinchester in the hope that Mirrin would find happiness with someone else.

* InterspeciesRomance: Mirrin and Birch. The former is a mouse, the latter a chipmunk. It gets treated more or less like an interracial romance would have been in 1960's America, with Birch being the minority. At one point, when Birch suggests that Mirrin might be happier with someone of her own kind, we get a SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoment when she tells him:
-->'''Mirrin''': I've never found anyone of my own kind. Except you.
** King Ka-Narsh-Pah and the dancer also count, in spite of interference from his EvilChancellor.

* LoveAtFirstSight: Hermux and Linka; Nip and Beulith; possibly Tucka and Hinkum, on her side at least.

* LukeIAmYourFather: Subverted in the third book, as the child in question never does find out. Played straight in the fourth book with the [=DeRosenquills=].

* MissingMom[=/=]DisappearedDad: Hermux's parents died a few years before the start of the series. Beulith's case is a bit more complicated.
** To wit: [[spoiler:Beulith is not Fluster & Beulene Varmint's daughter at all. Her real mother is costume designer Glissin—alias none other than WhiteDwarfStarlet Nurella Pinch—and her real father is the ventriloquist's [[TheSociopath psychopathic]] apprentice, [[IHaveManyNames Magner Wooliun, aka Corpius Crounce, aka Purvit Klimpsheeler]]. (Whew.)]]
%%* MrFixit: Hermux, who loves being a watchmaker.

-->"It was one thing to be all alone and facing certain death or worse (...), and it was another thing to be expected to do it without coffee."

* SheCleansUpNicely: Birch, a rare male example. Inversely, Linka actually looks better without elaborate clothes or makeup.

* ShipperOnDeck: Mirrin, for Hermux and Linka. Hermux, for Mirrin/Birch and Nip/Beulith.

* TrueBeautyIsOnTheInside: A lot of the first book is taken up with the question of beauty: What defines it? What is it worth? Hermux sincerely believes in this trope; according to Mirrin's advice, he writes thank-you notes to the universe in his journal eery night for the things he finds beautiful, and they are either ordinary things (food, landscapes) or abstract things like friendship, love, etc. Tucka, of course, believes the very opposite: she puts her beauty "on the outside, where it belongs" and is insufferable as a result.

* YouWontGetAwayWithThis: Hermux repeats this verbatim to Dr. Mennus, who is not impressed.

%%* ShallowLoveInterest: Linka gets two, Turfip Dandiffer and Brinx Lotelle.

%%* WhatTheHellDad: Androse.

'''The Hermux Tantamoq Adventures''', written by Michael Hoeye, are a series of children's detective novels set in a MouseWorld version of a modern-day city. The title character is a mild-mannered mouse watchmaker who solves his cases with the help of his pet ladybug, Terfle, his love interest Linka Perflinger, his mentor Mirrin Stentrill and various colorful and endearing friends. His recurring adversary is a vain, self-centered cosmetics tycoon named Tucka Mertslin, whose moneymaking schemes and bad taste in men often land Hermux on her bad side. There are four books, all [[IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming idiosyncratically named]] with titles referring to time:

# ''Time Stops for No Mouse''
# ''The Sands of Time''
# ''No Time Like Show Time''
# ''Time to Smell The Roses''

%%* {{Adorkable}}: Hermux again, especially when Linka is involved.

* BodyHorror: The U-Babe 2000. It's an automatic plastic surgery machine that's meant to turn a person into a perfect specimen of his/her species and gender ... but when something goes wrong, it really goes wrong!

* CharacterDevelopment: Hermux learns to be more assertive and more aware of the beauty around him. Linka learns to never get caught in a trap without backup. Androse [=DeRosenquill=] learns to appreciate his family. Tucka, conversely, seems to get worse with every book; she goes from merely a nuisance who sometimes even helps Hermux (such as when she hires him to restore the mechanical mouse dancer) to an active accessory to murder. She's also become more cynical in regards to her love life: in "The Sands of Time", she was eager to marry Hinkum, and seemed genuinely hurt and upset when she found out the truth; in the later books, she uses men for her own interests alone.

%%* AcePilot: Linka Perflinger - adventuress, daredevil and aviatrix.

* CarnivoreConfusion: Insects are treated as animals in the series. At one point a mouse character mentions eating grasshoppers, even though mice are herbivores. As for the cats...
** Mice aren't exclusive herbivores however. They can be pretty versatile with food, and in the real (human) world they're known to eat insects and worms.

* ChekhovsGun: The crimped penny from the Noddems' grandfather clock, the crumbs in Hermux's pocket, Linka's ring, Terfle's drawing skills ... it is a detective series after all.

* DerailingLoveInterests: Turfip Dandiffer, who seems like a very nice if absentminded professor at first, but later tells Linka to more or less.
* StayInTheKitchen: that is, to sell her beloved airplane and become the perfect hostess to advance his academic career. Linka is not happy about this, and neither is Hermux.

* GenreSavvy: At one point Linka comments that Hinkum is "a little amateurish at this whole villain thing". He stole her plane's distributor … but having been burned before, she has a spare.

-->"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's hypocrisy. Incidentally, you're looking lovely tonight, have you lost weight?"

-->"I've never found anyone of my own kind. Except you."

%%* MasterOfDisguise: Corpius Crounce ... if that's even his real name.

* ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated

* SheCleansUpNicely: Birch, a rare male example. Linka actually looks better without elaborate clothes or makeup.

** In Book 1, [[spoiler:IntrepidReporter mole Pup Schoonagliffen is none other than Dr Hiril Mennus in disguise … or maybe it's the other way around, no one can say]].
** In Book 3, [[spoiler:Glissin, the costume designer and best friend to Beulith's deceased mother Beulene, is none other than the reclusive celebrity, Nurella Pinch … '''and''' Beulith's ''biological'' mother, on top of that]].
* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: [[invoked]] Lampshaded and parodied by the author. Tucka and Rink sneer at anyone who doesn't share this point of view, especially Hermux, who cannot understand why Tucka's remodeling of his cozy lobby into a fake urban crime scene, or the "mugging" at the Varmint Theatre, or Rink's minimalistic stage designs, are supposed to be true art. On the other hand, Mirrin's cat paintings - for which she provides a perfectly reasonable explanation - are treated as horrifying and incomprehensible by the entire town. (Think a mouse version of the {{Mad Artist}}s Ardois-Bonnot or Henry Wilcox from "Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu", with cats as the resident {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.)

%%* YouWontGetAwayWithThis: Hermux repeats this verbatim to Dr. Mennus, who is not impressed.

* GenreSavvy: At one point Linka comments that Hinkum is "a little amateurish at this whole villain thing".