Bloodhounds Inc.

"Bloodhounds Inc." is a series of Christian comedy/detective stories for children written by Bill Myers. The series follows Sean and Melissa Hunter, a brother-and-sister team of Junior sleuths as they solve all manner of spooky mysteries in their hometown of Midvale, and learn important moral lessons along the way. DVDs have also been produced, and a Bloodhounds Inc. movie is apparently in progress.

Characters

Sean Hunter: The older of the two siblings, Sean tends to be a little on the slow side mentally speaking. He sometimes likes to think of himself as the leader of the team, but in reality the leadership is generally done 50/50: Melissa leads them to clues, and Sean leads them into trouble. Nevertheless, Sean does contribute to their crime-busting efforts, and when the going gets tough he can more than make up for his lack of intelligence with courage.

Melissa Hunter: The younger of the duo, Melissa is an honor student, but not snobby about it. She tries to talk Sean out of a lot of the crazy ideas he cooks up, with extremely limited success. Her catchphrase, which she uses whenever Sean manages to get her to agree to one of his ideas, is "Okay, but if we die you'll live to regret it."

Mr. Hunter: Sean and Melissa's dad. Mr. Hunter keeps very busy between running the KRZY radio station and raising his danger-prone duo of kids on his own, since his wife died from cancer a few months prior to the start of the series. He is a constant source of sound advice and Biblical wisdom.

Slobs: The Hunters' bloodhound, a frequent companion on their madcap escapades. Slobs (short for Slobbers) was named for her tendency to drool nonstop, and she frequently knocks down one or both of the Hunter children and covers them with kisses. She has saved the children's lives once or twice, using her 102-pound weight to topple almost anyone with ill intent. However, her most frequently used skills are tracking and running for shelter or help (or both). It is mentioned in "The Case of The Invisible Knight" that she was a gift from Mrs. Hunter at some point prior to her cancer.

Doc: A deaf scientist whom the Bloodhounds Inc. crew met in their first adventure, "The Ghost of KRZY". She is a brilliant inventor and an expert at reading lips. Her inventions have been known to run amok on a regular basis, but somehow she manages to stay in business. She provides Bloodhounds Inc. with most of their gear, which has a knack for malfunctioning at the worst possible times.

Jeremiah: An electronic entity who was Doc's first creation. Jeremiah can go anywhere that has electricity, including phonelines, computers, TVs, and even digital watches and microwaves. His name stands for Johnson Electronic Reductive Entity Memory Inductive Assembly Housing. When he was first created he escaped and got trapped overnight in a fortune cookie factory computer, where he absorbed so many proverbs and phrases that he fried his memory circuits. As a result, he tends to garble almost every expression he uses. His usual greeting is "What's down, duds?" (translated into standard phraseology that means, "What's up, dudes?") When there is enough electricity in the air, Jeremiah has been known to enter the real world- typically with disastrous results.

Spalding: One of the detective duos' schoolmates. Rich, sophisticated, and snobby, Spalding is typically a minor character and a major annoyance. He comes as a package deal with KC and Bear.

Bear: Bear is a big and muscular, but not very bright. As it was said in "Phantom of the Haunted Church", Bear's intelligence is such that he won't be "winning any scholarships to Harvard - or Sesame Street, for that matter."

KC: KC is the toughest girl in school. She is as small as Bear is big, but anyone who insults this tomboy does so at their own risk.

Mrs. Tubbs: The Hunters' grumpy next-door neighbor. Every single book so far includes at least one disaster in which Mrs. Tubbs finds herself as an unsuspecting victim. This is often due in part to her overfed and over-pampered cat, Precious, who has an ongoing feud with the Hunters' dog, Slobs. It has been revealed that Mrs. Tubbs wears a wig.

Books

#"The Ghost of KRZY" (1997), ISBN 15-5661-890-5
#"The Mystery of The Invisible Knight" (1997), ISBN 15-5661-891-3
#"Phantom of the Haunted Church" (1998), ISBN 15-5661-892-1
#"Invasion of the UFO's" (1998), ISBN 15-5661-893-X
#"Fangs for the Memories" (1999), ISBN 15-5661-489-6
#"Case of the Missing Minds" (1999) ISBN 15-5661-490-X
#"The Secret of the Ghostly Hot Rod" (2000) ISBN 15-5661-491-8
#"I Want My Mummy" (2000) ISBN 15-5661-492-6
#"The Curse of the Horrible Hair Day" (2001) ISBN 07-6422-437-9
#"The Scam of the Screwball Wizards" (2001) ISBN 07-6422-438-7
#"Mystery of the Melodies from Mars" (2002) ISBN 07-6422-623-1
#"Room with a Boo" (2002) ISBN 07-6422-624-X

TV Series

Cast:

* Craig Hauer as Sean Hunter
* Kendra Thomas as Melissa Hunter
* Richard Thomas as Mr. Hunter
* Billy Forester as Jeremiah
* Antonia Jones as Doc
* Tamara Zook as Mrs. Tubbs

Episodes

#The Ghost of KRZY
#The Mystery of The Invisible Knight
#Phantom of the Haunted Church
#Invasion of the UFO's
#Fangs for the Memories

External links

* [http://www.mcpl.lib.mo.us/readers/series/juv/title.cfm?id=126 List of Bloodhounds Inc. books]
* [http://www.bloodhoundsinc.com/ The TV series homepage]
* [http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2003/bloodhoundsinc.html A review of the TV series]