Hey, thank you so much for reading and responding -
you're right in that the style / approach has changed radically over the years,
transbunny was very loose and silly in the beginning, and by the last 2 books, it's a lot closer to ArtGumshoe (or at least Chapter 1 of ArtGumshoe)
however, i like that there's a direct line between ArtGumshoe and Transbunny - in that they meet Nerva during the adventure of the Glowing Photocopy, which Thomas got in the 1st page of Transbunny. It's like the yin-yang, man - no matter how little of X there is in Y, there's always a little.
I'm glad you like Nerva! She's.. well, she's a wonderful f***-up: weak, failure-prone, indomitable.