Tom Ryan

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.