‘Scooby-Doo’ fans will dig Cantero’s ‘Meddling Kids’
Edgar Cantero’s enjoyably batty Meddling Kids (Doubleday, 336 pp., unleashes enough freaky pleasure for horror fiends. Even more impressively, it scratches a nostalgic itch for those who grew up on Saturday morning Scooby-Doo cartoons and sugarbombed breakfast cereal.
Imagine H.P. Lovecraft driving the Mystery Machine and you’ll have some sense of the nutty goings-on when a team of former child super-sleuths and a dog reunite to revisit their most famous case, the Sleepy Lake monster.
Made up of friends who would spend school breaks together in the mining town of Blyton Hills, Ore., the Blyton Summer Detective Club was famous for foiling old costumed dudes trying all manner of criminal pursuits, like forging Native American craftwork or — most notably in 1977 — using a local legend to burglarize the manor of the town’s richest family. Mr. Wickley was unmasked thanks to these meddling kids and their pooch, though what the youngsters experienced during that fateful night continues to haunt them 13 years later.
Now grown-ups, they’re back together but much has changed: Tomboy Andy is a lesbian ex-con with military skills who’s wanted in two states; super-smart Kerri traded a biology career for a bartending one; nerdy Nate is an escaped mental patient; and all-American Peter committed suicide yet has found new life as an annoying apparition.
With Kerri’s mercurial Weimaraner Tim in tow, the Club returns to Blyton Hills, which has gone considerably downhill in their absence. Quicker than you can say “Ruh-roh,” they discover the place still has a monster problem. Whether they can blame it on a big corporation or something more supernaturally sinister, however, is the larger mystery.
There are nods to the Hardy Boys and especially the Scooby gang — the Zoinx River is a particularly nice touch. And Cantero creates a lot of interesting dynamics within his crew, with Andy figuring out her feelings for Kerri and Nate being haunted by Peter. In Scooby terms, it’s like Daphne having the hots for Velma and Shaggy hanging with Dead Fred. Cantero tweaks the archetypes enough that the characters still feel fresh and original.
There are pop-culture references aplenty, plus a strong Lovecraftian influence, including nods to Miskatonic University and Arkham, Mass. And there’s the looming presence of an ancient multi-tentacled creature of pure, unadulterated evil. ( Meddling
Kids is also the latest from the Blumhouse Books imprint, so you know it has horror-meister Jason Blum’s scary seal of approval.)
The story proves as cleverly witty as its title. It’s filled with high jinks both terrorizing and hilarious, and it goes down as smoothly as an old-school Scooby Snack.