Look, I love teen detectives. I really love teen detectives. It started with Harriet The Spy when I was a kid—You mean you read something other than cereal boxes?—and evolved into a full-blown obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So when I heard about a book featuring three teen detectives reuniting 25 years after a horrific crime, I was all in. Finally, a chance to relive my glory days of solving crimes from my couch while eating snacks. That’s not solving crimes, that’s watching TV. Whatever.

The Setup (Which Sounds Amazing)

Tom Ryan’s “We Had A Hunch” opens with twins Sam and Alice Van Dyne, who became famous as teenage detectives in 2000, helping their police chief father solve crimes in their small town. Then everything went horribly wrong when they tried to apprehend a serial killer called The Janitor. Great name for a serial killer, very menacing. Their father died. Alice’s boyfriend died. The twins’ lives were destroyed. And now, 25 years later, The Janitor—currently in prison—claims he didn’t commit all the murders he was charged with. Oh, and there’s a copycat killer on the loose. And a 14-year-old kid posting TikToks about it.

This is the kind of premise that makes you cancel your weekend plans. You didn’t have weekend plans. Fine, it makes you feel like you’re canceling weekend plans.

The Problem (There Are Several)

Here’s where things get tricky. The book promises us the backstory of these teen detectives—how they solved crimes, what made them special, the whole detective origin story. But we get almost none of it. It’s treated like required homework the author had to turn in before getting to the “real” story. So like when you have to eat vegetables before dessert? Exactly, except there’s no dessert.

You can’t dangle “teen detectives” in front of me and then refuse to let me play in that sandbox. That’s like inviting me to an all-you-can-eat buffet and then serving me a single cracker. You would be upset about that. I WOULD BE VERY UPSET.

The book is structured like a TV series—jumping between past and present, multiple storylines, plenty of characters. And like many TV series, some episodes are solid and some make you wonder if the writers’ room ran out of coffee. There’s Alice, still living in their hometown, married to Levi (her dead boyfriend’s brother, because that’s not weird at all). There’s Sam, living in L.A., who became briefly famous on a reality show called “Rebel House” where her catchphrase was “you suspicious bitch.” That’s actually pretty good. I know, right? And there’s Joey, the nerdy computer hacker who grew up to be a handsome tech expert with a husband and plans to maybe adopt a baby or move to Paris or something.

The Cast of Thousands

Then there are the subplots. Oh, the subplots. Can Alice’s marriage be saved? Will she leave Levi for her platonic stoner friend? Will Joey and his husband adopt that baby? Should we trust the family lawyer? What about the twins’ old music teacher? And the new police chief? And the imperious state investigator? And the neighbor kid with the true crime podcast? And his domineering father? And the girl who was secretly dating one of the victims?

By the time I got halfway through, I needed a spreadsheet to keep track of everyone. You don’t know how to use spreadsheets. Which is why I gave up and just kept reading.

The Ending (Spoiler: It’s Bad)

I almost quit this book. I was bored. But I’m one of those people who has to know whodunit, even when I suspect the “dunit” isn’t going to be worth it. That’s not healthy. I’m aware.
And folks, it was not worth it.

The ending is half incredibly obvious from the very beginning and half so ridiculous you’d never guess it—and not in a fun, clever way. More like a “the author wrote themselves into a corner and just threw something at the wall” way. The original crimes are glossed over so much that basic details don’t make sense. Like, why would a serial killer pour cleaning fluid on victims? Hence the name “The Janitor”? I guess, but nobody in the book seems to think that’s worth exploring! Everyone’s just chill about it, like “Oh yeah, the cleaning fluid guy, totally normal serial killer behavior.”

And once you get to the ending, you understand why. Because the original killings don’t actually make sense. The pieces were all there, just so the puzzle could have pieces. It’s like dumping out a jigsaw puzzle box only to discover half the pieces are from different puzzles and some are just crackers. Why are there crackers in your puzzle? IT’S A METAPHOR.

The character development is minimal. The conclusion reads like a TV cliffhanger designed to set up Season 2. And the whole thing left me feeling like I’d just spent hours investing in something that didn’t respect my time.

The Verdict

“We Had A Hunch” had so much potential. Teen detectives! Cold cases! Family drama! TikTok culture clashing with old-school detective work! But it’s overstuffed with subplots that go nowhere, populated with characters we barely care about, and culminates in an ending that feels both predictable and nonsensical at the same time.

You sound bitter. I spent valuable reading time on this! Time I could have used to watch It: Welcome To Derry.

If you’re a die-hard teen detective fan willing to overlook significant plot holes and disappointing character development just to see how it ends, maybe give it a shot. But if you want a satisfying mystery with actual detective work and a coherent resolution, you should probably trust your hunch and skip this one.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go read some Hardy Boys to cleanse my palate.

They solved crimes in ten minutes.

Don’t rub it in.

Want to hear a positive review? Try my review of The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown