It deals with a former gang of children detectives, in the vein of Enid Blyton's Famous Five or Scooby-Doo, who reunite in their mid-twenties to reopen a case that traumatized them as kids and expose a plot of Lovecraftian horror.

The novel opens with a newspaper clip from 1977 featuring the "Blyton Summer Detective Club", a bunch of young investigators aged 11–13, who solved the mystery of an alleged monster haunting the area of Sleepy Lake in Oregon.

Thirteen years after solving that last case, the former detectives have drifted apart and lead broken lives, haunted by the memories of the night they spent in the mansion on the lake: budding genius Kerri is an alcoholic tormented by nightmares and has been unable to finish her schooling; nerd Nate is regularly checking himself into mental institutions; tomboy Andy is a vagrant wanted in several states and dealing with aggressive behavior; and golden boy Peter went on to become a successful Hollywood actor whose career was cut short by suicide.

[4] The novel also borrows heavily from the Cthulhu Mythos, the fictional universe established by authors publishing their stories in the magazine Weird Tales, and in particular from H. P. Lovecraft's novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

[8] Meddling Kids received mostly positive reviews, with critics drawing comparisons with Buffy the Vampire Slayer[9] and "1980s-centric projects" like Stranger Things or Stephen King's It.

"[13] Brian Truitt of USA Today gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars and called it "as cleverly witty as its title...filled with high jinks both terrorizing and hilarious.