We Had a Hunch
A Mystery
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Nancy Drew meets Yellowjackets in a new small-town mystery from USA TODAY bestselling author Tom Ryan that asks a simple question: what happens to your favorite teenage detectives when they grow up?
Twenty-Five Years Ago
Few stories captured the public’s imagination in the year 2,000 like the friendly rivalry between the Teen Detectives of Edgar Mills, Massachusetts. Twin sisters Alice and Samantha VanDyne were thrust in the spotlight when they helped their father Sheriff Bill VanDyne identify and track down a slippery drug smuggling ring. Across town, introverted and bookish Joey O’Day proved himself to be a talented investigator of a different sort when he used his computer skills and idiosyncratic mind to expose an online grifter who had been preying on elderly victims.
The fact that Edgar Mills had not one, but two sets of teenage sleuths did not escape the notice of the press. As the trio began jockeying to outdo each other, solving one low level crime after another, the wider world began to pay attention. Before long, they were a sensation, appearing on talk shows and the covers of teen magazines.
But when a brutal series of murders rocked Edgar Mills, a deadly miscalculation on the part of the VanDyne twins led to the shocking and gruesome deaths of their father, Sheriff VanDyne, and Alice’s boyfriend. The killer, Bruce Phillip Kershaw— better known as The Janitor—was ultimately captured with the help of Joey O’Day, but both Edgar Mills and their beloved Teen Detectives would never be the same.
Today
It’s been a quarter century since The Janitor terrorized Edgar Mills, and the Teen Detectives have grown up. Samantha and Joey have scattered: Sam to Los Angeles and a life as a B List reality TV star, and Joey to a lucrative tech career in Boston. Alice, on the other hand, still lives in Edgar Mills, her guilt and heartbreak having taken root and kept her stuck in this town.
When Edgar Mills is shaken by a new murder that appears to follow The Janitor’s MO, Bruce Phillip Kershaw offers, from his maximum-security prison cell, to provide new information that might help crack this new case. The catch? He’ll only talk to the Teen Detectives that put him away.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former teen detectives pursue a killer in this sinuous small-town thriller from Ryan (The Treasure Hunters Club). In the year 2000, ambitious 17-year-old twin sleuths Alice and Sam Van Dyne tire of helping their police officer dad with low-stakes cases and contrive to trap the murderer terrorizing Edgar Mills, Mass. Their sting goes sideways despite computer whiz Joey O'Day's assistance, and the killer—school janitor Bruce Kershaw—slays the girls' father and Alice's boyfriend before being arrested. Twenty-five years later, Alice, Sam, and Joey receive calls from the Edgar Mills police chief, who is chasing an apparent Kershaw copycat. Though incarcerated, Kershaw claims to have valuable intel about the new killer that he will communicate only to Joey and the twins. After the trio pay him a visit, they launch their own investigation. The setup is convoluted, but it doesn't take long for Ryan's tale to hit its stride. Whiplash-inducing plot twists and convincing red herrings abound, but Ryan leaves plenty of room for character development, using the present-day mystery as a means for his three protagonists to confront their pasts and reassess their futures. This is criminally good fun.
