There are three reasons why it has taken me so long to review this book.
1. It never got a physical release and I was holding out a fools hope that maybe some day it would.
2. I knew, given the cancelation of the aforementioned physical edition, this was likely to be the last in the series and I knew it would be difficult to tie up all of the loose ends.
And 3. I enjoyed the 1st two books quite a bit and I didn’t want it to be over.
But, as Star Trek taught us, all good things…
I really dug the first two books in this series, can this one stand shoulder to shoulder with them?
Will the mysteries of the vanishing and the Rogers family involvement move forward?
Strap in, gang, time to find out!
Jeepers, this is your official ***Spoiler Alert***
Also, be sure to reread my reviews of the first two books here and here.
Production has begun on Cursed, the TV Show based on Daphne’s Mom’s game, and various interests, including Shaggy’s Dad and Velma’s Mom, around Crystal Cove aren’t happy.
Celebrity gossip, the town curse, and accidents on set all converge to make the mysteries of the past seem even more real.
Can the titular twosome make their way through it all and get to the truth before they, or anyone they care about, end up dead?
I need to make this painfully clear, 98.361% or more of the problems with this book, and series for that matter, have nothing to do with author Morgan Baden or her abilities.
Because it is excruciatingly clear by the way this installment ends that she was setting up sequels that haven’t, and it appears most likely won’t, come to pass.
We still have the entire boatload of just what the hell Shaggy’s Dad and the whole of the Rogers family are involved with and up too.
Despite a strong theory from a now dead writer on Cursed, we still don’t know exactly what happened with the vanished all those decades ago.
And we now have a scavenger hunt for a map that may help in solving both mysteries.
Baden knows how to engage a reader, gang.
She also has a good handle on this alternate version of the Mystery Inc gang, who all feel more fleshed out here than in the previous two books.
She’s managed to make them feel familiar, while still remaining far enough removed from the characters we’ve seen in cartoons for years that she has enough room to put her own spin on them and the world.
Never does it run into Velma or Apocalypse territory, which both left you feeling like the creators were forced to slap a Scooby coat of paint on their precious original ideas to get a greenlight.
I get the feeling that, much like the vast majority of us that read this trilogy, Morgan Baden genuinely likes Scooby-Doo, as it was established.
I also appreciate the toning down of the man hating from the last two books.
Something I can’t remember if I previously mentioned or not that I love about this series is that, much like the two live action junior novels, each chapter swaps back and forth between Daphne & Velma as the narrator.
It almost leads to this series feeling like the kitbashed diaries of the girls, but it’s also great to get inside the heads of these icons.
To start wrapping up, all I can say is by the end, I was left disappointed.
I could see a way forward for these books, a rough path was laid out before our fingery page flipping feet.
Maybe not in Book 4, but in a Book 5, I could totally see Mystery Inc fully reforming to tackle whatever plagues this town, since we got glimpses of it in this.
It’s sad to see this universe come to an end so soon when there is so much potential just left to die on the vine.
I will still hope for a serious, non-YA, series of Scooby-Doo novels, but I am happy to say we got goddamn close with this series.
As it comes to a close, all of the kinks were worked out and it’s a shame to now have to say goodbye.
Special thanks to Adam.
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Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.
