Tom Ryan
When I was a kid, I spent a week in the tiny children’s ward of my small hometown hospital. In the corner of the room was a large bookshelf lined with Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew titles. I can still picture the blue and yellow spines, and how eagerly I tore through those adventures during my convalescence.
Those books lit the spark for my lifelong love of mysteries, and more specifically, teen detectives. It was thrilling, even a little aspirational, to follow a sharp young sleuth as they pieced together clues adults had overlooked. Maybe it’s no surprise that my first mystery novels—Keep This to Yourself and I Hope You’re Listening—were written for young adults and featured teens carrying out amateur investigations. I loved writing characters who hadn’t yet been dulled by adulthood, who tackled the world with curiosity and still believed that any wrong could be righted if only you were clever and determined enough.
Writing for teens was fulfilling in many ways, but eventually I decided I wanted to reach out to a wider audience. My adult debut, The Treasure Hunters Club, which came out last year, was a multi-generational mystery featuring a sprawling cast of characters in a charming seaside village in Nova Scotia. It was satisfying to write about characters at different stages of life, and yet I couldn’t resist making one of my three protagonists a teenager investigating not just one mystery—the location of a fabled pirate treasure—but also the suspicious deaths of several of her elderly neighbours. It turns out the trope of the teen sleuth is one that’s difficult for me to turn my back on entirely.
Perhaps it was inevitable that I’d eventually begin to wonder what happens to teen detectives when they grow up. Do they still chase hunches, break rules, and poke into dark corners? Or do they try to bury those instincts under the weight of everyday life?
That’s the basic premise of my upcoming novel We Had a Hunch. It follows Alice and Samantha VanDyne and Joey O’Day, the formerly famous “Teen Detectives” of Edgar Mills, Massachusetts. At the turn of the century they were local legends, solving crimes and attracting media attention. But their golden age came to a horrific end when a brutal serial killer—known in the media as The Janitor—struck, shaking the town, shattering their lives, and leaving behind deep scars. Today, twenty-five years later, a new murder rocks Edgar Mills, echoing The Janitor’s original crimes. From his prison cell, he offers to provide some inside information, but he’ll only speak to the Teen Detectives, and only if all three of them show up.
Part of why teen sleuths are so compelling is that they occupy a strange in-between space. They’re not kids anymore, but they’re not fully independent adults either. They sneak around parents, bend the rules, and take risks with abandon. Their investigations often double as quests for independence, identity, and belonging. Writing YA mysteries showed me how the cliques, secrets and betrayals of high school echo the wider world they’re destined to enter in adulthood. The stakes don’t really go away; they just change shape.
Shifting to adult mystery meant training some new muscles. YA thrives on speed and immediacy: short chapters, sharp dialogue, action that unfolds in the now. Adult mysteries allow for more patience, for the weight of history and scars, for crimes that reach back decades. I’ve come to love the space to explore how the past never really loosens its grip, and how memory and regret shape the present.
At the same time, I never want to lose the urgency of YA. The fast pace, propulsive plots, and emotional core at the heart of my earlier teen novels make for great storytelling. We Had a Hunch gave me a chance to braid both styles together. It’s a crime story, but it’s also about aging, memory, and whether we can ever truly outgrow who we once were. For Alice, Samantha, and Joey, it’s not just a matter of solving a case. It’s about facing the people they became, and embracing the teenagers they’ll never fully leave behind.
I’m glad I’ve been able to write both YA and adult mysteries. YA taught me how to keep momentum sharp and characters vivid. Adult fiction has given me new tools for layering, depth, and resonance. My experience on both sides of the bridge helped me tell this new story. Like the former teen detectives, I’m still chasing the same thrill I found in those blue and yellow spines: the irresistible pull of a mystery waiting to be solved.
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