"Killer Pizza" by Greg Taylor

Toby McGill doesn't ask for much. He'd like to get a summer job. After all, he's 14, he doesn't have many friends and he's very bored. However, Toby has plans of becoming a celebrity chef, so he just needs some practice. Enter Killer Pizza. It's the only place to hire Toby, where he works with Annabel (a beautiful, smart and rich classmate) and Strobe (an angry older boy).

However, all is not as it seems at Killer Pizza. Instead of a pizza place with a monster theme, it's actually a front for a monster hunting organization and the leader, Harvey, wants Toby and his coworkers to be the start of the team in their area. The book involves guttatas (humans turned nasty beasts), humor and slowly growing friendships, along with danger and suspense. Toby is a likable main character and Strobe and Annabel seem like realistic coworkers and eventually, friends.

It's well written, however, sometimes it seems a little superficial. When reading about the author you learn that Taylor is also a screenwriter and that explains a lot, in that you can tell that sometimes the action is slightly more important than character development. The book reads like an action packed humorous horror movie and that's not a bad thing. I'd give it a solid B or even a B+ for some kids. I'd probably recommend it for kids 13 and up.