Review title is a quote from Rachel Hawkins’ Demonglass
This book is like comic book fan fiction from my 8th grade brain. But more violent, and less me-as-Bess-kissing-a-cute-Frank-Hardy.
Imagine the writers of Riverdale picked a different universe to focus their melodramatic musings on. Imagine that world was the pivotal Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys super mysteries, when it seemed like maybe they were trying to do a Christopher Pike thing? (For the record, The Nancy Drew Files were my favorite version.) But imagine instead of leaning into weird paranormal nonsense, they leaned into more of a 1940s gritty noir mystery but still kept around cell phones and stuff.
That’s what this comic series is, from Fay Dalton’s glorious pulpy cover art, to the Hardy Boys dry narration, to the twisty mystery at its core. The mystery concerns the murder of Fenton Hardy, killed after being accused of being a dirty cop. It appeared to be a suicide, but once foul play was determined, Frank and Joe themselves are brought in as suspects. It seems only the help of the smartest teen girl in town will get them out of this mess — or are they just about to sink deeper?
The mystery itself was fine though not the strongest part of the book. I think the reason it is fun to read is the smushing of all your favorite teen detectives into one dark universe: the Bobbsey Twins and their raging parties, the Rover Brothers and their underground dirty card games; Tom Swift and his super hacking skills, and I assume at some point Trixie Belden will show up as a teen mom who left her kids in a boxcar. The thing I didn’t love about the series is that it feels weird to me to have teenagers be the focus of a noir mystery, but maybe I’m just not familiar enough with the genre. I think I’d have had them come back as young adults or something. Mostly because Nancy is like, the femme fetale, and I don’t know yet where that’s going (so far, only the other teen characters comment on her appearance). I’m not sure if I like it enough to keep reading, but it made for a fun palate cleanser between all the committee reading I’m doing and I’ll probably keep ordering it for my library graphic novel collection.