The four teenage members of the self-proclaimed “Outsiders Club” have banded together out of a need for mutual belonging, and for safety, since they are the targets of some vicious, world-class bullies. Their lives, relatively complicated for ones so young, become even more so when they discover an abandoned automobile in the woods, containing millions of dollars in the interior and a corpse in the trunk. Things go from bad to worse when concerned parties figure out their secret and descend on their small hometown, demanding the money. Suddenly, it’s literally life or death for the Outsiders and those they love.

Seth C. Adams’ debut is a solid first novel, which reaches far and mostly succeeds. It’s highly derivative—think of Stephen King’s It by way of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew by way of Scott Smith’s A Simple Plan—but it’s a fun ride, full of nostalgia for the recent past, specifically the early ’90s. Adams channels many excellent writers, some of whom he nods to in an endearing Acknowledgement (specifically King, Dean Koontz, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Matheson), and a handful of others he doesn’t mention, but whose presence is felt nevertheless (for example, Dan Simmons in Summer of Night). Although sometimes predictable, Adams often dashes readers’ expectations simply by going darker than one might expect. I think now that he has purged this obvious labor of love from his system, he can proceed to develop his own voice and to tell the stories only he can tell.