Snoops, Inc. # 3 - The Cursed Stage

Every once in a while, you want a really quick read, but at the same time, you want a story that is enjoyable.  That may not always be easy to find, but fortunately, with the Snoops, Inc. series, I have the perfect combination of both.  Written by Brandon Terrell, with plenty of internal illustrations by Mariano Epelbaum, these early reader stories may only be 100 pages or so in length, with large font and one or two full or half page illustrations in each chapter, but they are chock full of fun mysteries.  Terrell is a self-proclaimed lover of mystery stories, and his author blurb in the back of the book reveals he has more than 200 Hardy Boys books in his collection!  That definitely gives him a heads-up in the mystery department - and it clearly shows in his writing of this series.

The Cursed Stage is the third book in the Snoops, Inc. series, and with it, I was pleased to find two of my favorite past times merged into this one mystery - comics and theater!  The book opens with twins, Hayden and Jaden Williams, and their two best friends, Keisha Turner and Carlos Diaz, who are the four members of Snoops, Inc. ("No Case Two Small ... We Solve Them All!"), hiding out in The Comic Vault in order to catch a thief.  And catch a thief they do!  The four spring a trap that catches an employee of the store who has been pilfering high-valued comics and selling them on the side to make himself some easy money.  It's always funny to see authors create fake names for books, comics, movies, and other pop culture things in order to avoid any copyright problems - so, in this story, we get Metal Miracle, Zom-Borg, and Arachno-Boy instead of Iron Man, (not sure of the middle one - a combination of zombie and cyborg, perhaps?), and Spider-Man.  And, of course, Action Man is an obvious placeholder for Superman (who first appeared in Action Comics back in the day).

 

By Chapter Two, Terrell and Epelaum move us into the actual mystery that is the focus of this book, as Hayden, Jaden, Keisha, and Carlos are helping out their middle school drama teacher with the school play for the year.  All four are working behind the scenes, but poor Jaden just cannot help but be enamored with the star of the play, a fellow classmate by the name of Frankie Dixon (gee, wonder how the author came up with that name?  If you can't figure it out based on what I told you in the first paragraph of this post, then do some research....).  Frankie is a former BFF of Keisha, but the two parted ways for reasons not explained in this book (maybe a future story?), and she is definitely a high-maintenance diva.  Frankie knows she's a star (even if her Daddy donated a lot of things to the school and the pay to help earn her that spot), and she will not let anyone take the spotlight away from her - not even the ghost that is haunting the play.

 

What, what?  A ghost?! That's right.  Terrell gives us a haunted theater (or, a cursed stage, as the title proclaims) for the Snoops, Inc. team to figure out.  Ghosts aren't real, as the kids know, but someone is clearly "haunting" the theater.  Someone does not want the production of Wagons West! to go forward ... or, is it more specific?  Does someone not want Frankie Dixon to be the star of the play?  While astute readers will be able to spot the culprit from the get-go, I must say the mystery is well-plotted, with little clues placed conveniently along the way so that the age-group for which this series is intended can have fun trying to pick them out and solving the mystery right along with the Snoops, Inc. gang.

 

Epelbaum's illustrations are beautiful and add so much to the story.  They really make me miss all of the internals that the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, and other series books used to have back in the day.  I think the publishers are really missing the mark when they do not include illustrations in their stories.  It is not just grade schoolers and middle schoolers who enjoy the illustrations - older readers like them as well! (Kensington publishers got it right back in the late '70s and early '80s when they produced the line of illustrated Gothic novels and Mystery Puzzler novels for adults!)  Epelbaum's illustrations capture some great suspenseful moments in the story, and some of them even add an element of clues to the story if the reader studies them carefully!

 

(The one thing the author did forget is the stage light - every theater always has one single light that remains on at all times - it's a superstition that goes back many, many years, and pretty much every theater I have ever seen has one!) 

 

It's rather a shame this series did not last beyond its six book run back in 2017 - not sure if that was the author's choice or the publisher's decision, but both need to take another look at it!  These kids deserve more stories!

 

RATING:  8 falling western-town-painted flats out of 10 for a hauntingly good tale of ghosts, mysteries, and tons of theater fun!