We Had a Hunch by Tom Ryan

There is an interesting sub-genre starting to develop which are books about adults who used to be famous when they were in their teens. It builds out from a long tradition of childrens’ and Young Adult books which make young people the heroes – be they detectives or super heroes. Veronica Roth’s book Chosen Ones riffed on the idea of young heroes when they have grown up. Recently Jim C Hines brought a group of heroes out of retirement in Slayers of Old. Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer is currently planning a comeback. Enter Tom Ryan who takes on the tropes of the teen detective, from Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys to Veronica Mars, in We Had a Hunch.

In the opening, set twenty five years ago, twins Alicia and Samantha Van Dyne took their teen detecting a little too far in their desire to stop a killer. Their enthusiasm, based on some earlier solves, gets one of their friends and their father killed. Also involved at the time is teen cybercrime buster Joey O’Day. In the present day only Alicia remains in their old town, now married to the brother of the boy who was killed. But then someone is killed in the same way as the murders they were investigating back in their teens. And not long after, the supposed perpetrator, nicknamed the Janitor, asks from prison to see them. The three are drawn back to their home town and, despite their better judgement, into the investigation business.

We Had a Hunch has a great hook – the trio find out fairly quickly that they made some wrong assumptions back in the day. And the mystery also does not take time to accelerate with more murders and plenty of suspicious characters, including the family lawyer and a teen living next door to the Van Dyne’s mother who happens to be doing a podcast about the Janitor case. But Ryan eventually pushes things a little too far – more murders and a double kidnapping – to a resolution which works thematically but seriously stretches the bounds of credibility.

The heart of this book though is an exploration of adulthood. It is about the decisions we make as teenagers and how those can echo down through our lives as they are either amplified or we do our best to try and do the opposite. The three main characters represent different aspects of this dilemma. Alice stayed, married and settled, Sam ran as far as she could and tried to develop a totally different persona, and Joey is in a relationship but still trying to avoid commitment. While it is brought about by another round of mayhem and death, the centre of this book is the story of these three finally completing the process of growing up.

We Had a Hunch is a fun crime novel, with particular resonance for any readers whose gateway to the genre was idolising, identifying with or just following the exploits of teen detectives. And while it may not quite wrap up in a convincing way, it has a great time getting there.

We Had a Hunch by Tom Ryan

7.5

7.5/10