Meddling Kids (Cantero)

Meddling Kids 
Edgar Cantero, 2017
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385541992

Summary
With raucous humor and brilliantly orchestrated mayhem, Meddling Kids subverts teen detective archetypes like the Hardy Boys, the Famous Five, and Scooby-Doo, and delivers an exuberant and wickedly entertaining celebration of horror, love, friendship, and many-tentacled, interdimensional demon spawn.

1977
The Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in Oregon’s Zoinx River Valley) solved their final mystery and unmasked the elusive Sleepy Lake monster — another low-life fortune hunter trying to get his dirty hands on the legendary riches hidden in Deboën Mansion. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.

1990
The former detectives have grown up and apart, each haunted by disturbing memories of their final night in the old haunted house. There are too many strange, half-remembered encounters and events that cannot be dismissed or explained away by a guy in a mask.

And Andy, the once intrepid tomboy now wanted in two states, is tired of running from her demons. She needs answers. To find them she will need Kerri, the one-time kid genius and budding biologist, now drinking her ghosts away in New York with Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the club.

They will also have to get Nate, the horror nerd currently residing in an asylum in Arkham, Massachusetts. Luckily Nate has not lost contact with Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star who was once their team leader … which is remarkable, considering Peter has been dead for years.

The time has come to get the team back together, face their fears, and find out what actually happened all those years ago at Sleepy Lake. It’s their only chance to end the nightmares and, perhaps, save the world.

A nostalgic and subversive trip rife with sly nods to H. P. Lovecraft and pop culture, Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids is a strikingly original and dazzling reminder of the fun and adventure we can discover at the heart of our favorite stories, no matter how old we get. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—May 27, 1981
• Where—Barcelona, Spain
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Joan Crexells Prize-Best Novel
• Currently—lives in Barcelona, Spain


Edgar Cantanero is a Spanish caetoonist and writer born in Barcelona where he still lives and writes in Spanish, Catalonia (an ancient Romance languge), and English. His first book, Dormir amb Winona Ryder (2007, Sleeping with Winona Ryder), was awarded the Joan Crexells prize for best novel of 2007. It was followed by Vallvi (2011), a punk dystopian thriller

His first U.S. novel (and third book), Supernatural Enhancements, came out in 2014 as a paranormal mystery. It's first-person narrative incorporates journals, postcard images, sketches, and audio-video transcripts. For the most part, the novel received favorable reviews with Kirkus calling it "quirky" and "good fun throughout."

As Cantero recounts on his blog, his second English novel, was the result of a January, 2015, luncheon in New York. He was in the midst of pitching a new book idea to his publisher when he made a rash promise to deliver a finished manuscript in eight months. The only thing, Cantero was bluffing.

Yet to his own amazement, at the end of eight months, he acutally completed the project. That book became Meddling Kids, released in 2017. The story—surrounding members of a former kid's detective club who are now young adults—contains elements of H.P. Lovecraft, as well as Scooby Doo and the Hardy Boys. (From varoius online sources.)

Book Reviews
Cantero will win readers’ hearts with this goofy, smart love letter to childhood adventure and enduring friendship.… [With] a powerful sorcerer who plans to summon a world-ending leviathan. The prose is fast and funny, and the quirky, lovable characters are absolutely irresistible.
Publishers Weekly


Darker than the meddling kids of Scooby Doo fame; from the author of The Supernatural Enhancements.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Cantero’s imagination is vivid, and the story, once it gains speed, continues at a breakneck, roller-coaster pace. He plays with form and style, which makes for an enjoyable romp. Fans of modern takes on Lovecraft and those that are nostalgic for the cartoons of their childhood will like this novel.
Booklist


Cantero is a lively, capable writer, but this isn't much of a stretch for him; he seems determined to occupy the middlebrow midrange… Meddling? Middling. A pleasing enough confection, but no great advance for either pop culture or the author's development.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The opening of the book sees the members of the Blyton Summer Detective Club (BSDC) as adults, and reveals their childhood stories in non-linear episodes. Did you find that this technique created suspense and mystery? How else does Cantero build tension throughout the book?

2. What did you make of BSDC’s choice to go back to Blyton Hills and return to the Deboen Mansion? Would you have made the same decision?

3. For years, Nate has been plagued by hallucinations of the deceased Peter. However, Peter has a real impact on Nate’s choices and actions. How reliable do you consider Nate’s interactions with Peter to be? Are they a figment of imagination or is Peter still an active member of the group?

4. The narrator in Meddling Kids has a very distinct voice and personality. Did you find yourself connecting with the voice? What did the narrative voice add to your reading experience?

5. Meddling Kids draws on archetypes from The Hardy Boys, The Famous Five, and Scooby-Doo—how did your knowledge of characters from those works inform your reading of the novel?

6. The supernatural plot in the book borrows heavily from cosmic horror, H.P. Lovecraft, and the Cthulhu Mythos. How much of those inspirations can you recognize in the scenarios, the props, even the supporting characters in Meddling Kids?

7. Which member of the BSDC do you identify most with? Why?

8. The character of Dunia Deboen, even after the final revelations, is shrouded in mystery: by the end, we know tidbits from her past, but nothing about her true origins–and her future is left open as well. Do you like this ambiguity? Do you think it’s intentional?

9. Were you surprised by the ending of Meddling Kids? If so, what did you expect to happen?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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