Do you fondly remember the days of Saturday morning cartoons? Eating cereal in your pajamas while the Scooby gang unmasked yet another menacing but ultimately fallible villain felt satisfying and simple in a way that current tasks of holding down a job and making loan payments don’t. For anyone missing that satisfying thrill of a mystery solved, a foe vanquished, but interested in looking at the mystery through an adult lens, we’ve got some recommendations for you.
What to Read
Charlotte Illes Is Not a Detective by Katie Siegel
Ex-kid detective Charlotte Illes thought she’d hung up her detective’s hat for the last time years ago, until she gets called for one last case years later. As a twenty-five year old living with her mom, trying to find a job, and striking out on the dating apps, Charlotte is wondering if she peaked in middle school, and if just maybe this case may be her path to the person she wants to be. Unfortunately this case is a lot more complicated than the pudding cup capers she was solving as a kid, but as Charlotte brushes off her rusty investigative skills she starts to remember why she loved doing this as a kid!
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
Featuring a group of has been kid detectives as damaged adults, this 90s set horror story begins with the last criminal the Blyton Summer Detective Club put behind bars being released. Now not only is he free but after Andy, a former member of the group, confronts him she begins to doubt whether they nabbed the right culprit all those years ago. Will the gang be able to get back together and solve this crime? And after years of unmasking humans dressed as fictions, could there be a real supernatural menace behind it?
The Camp by Nancy Bush
Definitely the scariest recommendation on this list, this story takes place twenty years after a shocking death occurred at Camp Luft-Shawk. Was it a murder, a suicide? No one knows for sure, except a few campers who have kept their mouths shut all this time. But with a camp reunion taking place at the camp old wounds will be reopened, friendships will be tested, and if you don’t watch your back someone might just put a knife in it.
What to Watch
Velma
The most linear contemporary reincarnation of the Scooby Doo franchise, this show takes a look at the origins of the Scooby Gang before they became the mystery solving squad we all know and love. This series is a little raunchier, with more biting humor than the original, ironically the characters may be younger but the show is trying to tackle more adult themes.
Only Murders in the Building
What has the power to bring together comedic powerhouses Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short? True crime podcasts apparently. When an unpopular tenant is murdered at their luxe Upper West Side apartment building Gomez, Martin, and Short think their love of true crime and proximity to the crime makes them the perfect trio to investigate and publish about this gruesome crime online. Secrets will be revealed, shenanigans will be had, and nothing will ever be the same again. For this team of wannabe detectives.
Solve It Squad
While The Solve It Squad may not still be performing live shows in New York it will live on in our hearts and minds…and also on Youtube. Featuring a crew similar to the Scooby Gang but all grown up. The mystery begins with Scrags, currently an FBI agent, being assigned a mystery eerily similar to one he solved as a kid. Forced to go back to his childhood home and confront his past demons, Scrags meets up with the rest of the gang who are all dealing with the traumas of their past in different dysfunctional ways, all except for the beloved team dog Scooby, I mean Cluebert, who passed away years ago. Can the team come back together to solve one last case, and help each other heal?
Reprinted with permission from Kensington Books
