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Nelly Reifler’s joyride of a first novel, Elect H. Mouse State Judge (Faber and Faber; 103 pages), joins the pantheon of morality tales centered on rodents—Aesop’s Fables, Maus, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Her slim volume sets itself apart from the pack with a riveting detective story that remixes Dashiell Hammett and Toy Story, along with a freakish sense of humor. This kooky playground disturbs all the more for its seeming innocence. As it turns out, our childhood toys are fallible, sinful, and even slutty.

Far from cartoonish, the mice and dolls that people Reifler’s novel transcend their plastic or furry bodies. H. Mouse, politician and adoring father, becomes a conflicted soul. Through him, Reifler embodies one of the story’s central moral questions: What are the limits of empathy? In the beginning, H. Mouse maintains utopian beliefs and policies: “Rocking on his porch, he thought of the word parity, and about how he believed that each of us is basically good, equally so—no matter how some may stray because of their stressful circumstances.” What happens next tests the bedrock of H. Mouse’s worldview.

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