book review: Meddling Kids, by Edgar Cantero

 A nerd, a bookworm, a jock, and a tomboy get together to solve a mystery in a haunted house, and discover it's just a guy in a costume. He'd have gotten away with it too, except for those kids--and their dog.

No--not those kids.

But it's pretty clear where Edgar Cantero got his inspiration when he wrote Meddling Kids, a darkly comic look at what happens when a Scooby-Doo like group of teens finally encounter a mystery in which there's just a little bit more going on than a get-rich scheme.

 It's 1977, and the Blyton Summer Detective Club--a group of kids even younger than the Scooby Gang--has gotten a reputation for solving small mysteries around the town of Blyton Hills. But during their last case something happened--something only half remembered. Yes, the guy in the costume got put away, but when he's released from prison in 1990 and tomboy Andy tracks him down, he confirms what she suspected: There was something way bigger than a fake amphibian monster sneaking around the old mansion, and the ex-con wouldn't go back to that town for love or money.

It was the gang's last case, and they also left town, haunted by what they saw. Andy is now wanted in two states; braniac Kerri the bookworm is a booze-soaked bartender living with the descendant of their dog; Nate the horror nerd keeps checking himself into mental hospitals, but at least he stays in touch with jock Peter ... although that's problematical, because Peter committed suicide years before.

Andy brings the team back together, convinced they have to face whatever happened that last night in the old mansion. What they find is right out of H.P. Lovecraft; it's not in a costume, and it threatens a whole lot more than just their sanity.

The meddling kids and their adult sidekicks.

 

Edgar Cantero has a unique writing style, something I'm not usually a fan of. He throws in long run-on sentences, invented words, and sometimes a sparse, screenplay style of scene writing that includes only the dialogue. It's original, often fun, and something that would get thrown directly in the trash if it came across the average book editor's submission pile, but it works.

As Andy gets the team back together and tackles the horror their hometown has become, we get a story of humor and terror that's also filled with poignancy, which is a real word I just looked up. All together Meddling Kids is a rich journey that combines nostalgia with a good measure of scares, and gives us a good idea of how things might have progressed with the Scooby gang in real life.

And it puts me squarely on Edgar Cantero's fan list ... if not before, than definitely after the last scene with the dog.