In screenwriter Greg Taylor’s first novel, Killer Pizza, 14 year old Toby just landed a great job for a guy who dreams of being a celebrity chef – in the kitchen of a cool new franchise, Killer Pizza. Along with his teen co-workers, Strobe and Annabel, Toby soon discovers the pizza shop is actually a front for a nationwide network of monster hunters – wait?! Monster Hunters? Yep, monsters! They quickly accept the reality that fearsome monsters exist in their midst, and undergo weeks of combat, technical, and weapons training in order to discover and defeat them.
The main ingredient in this recipe is action, action, and more action. It’s like a supreme pizza with all the fast-paced, scary stunts, and go-go-go action you’d expect from a summer movie blockbuster. There’s not a lot of extraneous character -, motivation -, or emotional – development to get in the way of one well-described scary encounter with the guttata monsters after another. It’s not very spooky or even chilling, but has just the right mix of horror and action to get the pulse of an upper elementary/middle school reader thumping.
- Posted by Cori
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