The Puzzle of Doom (The Lunch Club, Book 8)

Written and illustrated by Dom Pelletier

Scholastic Canada

978-1-0397-1102-0

136 pp.

Ages 7–10

July 2025 

 

You know there will be laughs to be had if the secret club called the Lunch Club is meeting again. This time Leo and Tia, along with their club advisor Mr. Peabody, are pulled into a ghostly puzzle that comes from England.

From The Puzzle of Doom, written and illustrated by Dom Pelletier

In the prologue to Dom Pelletier's latest volume in his The Lunch Club series, readers are witness to Lord Puzzlegood who, while working outdoors on a puzzle at his club in 1890 London, is killed by lightning. His fellow puzzlers, threatened by his ghostly demands to find the final puzzle piece, lock him away with the puzzle while his earthly possessions are exiled to Canada.

 

In the present day, Leo and Tia, along with Mr. Peabody, are enjoying a local street fair where Madame Celeste (from an earlier adventure) gifts them with a protection amulet and crystal ball respectively. Tia also ends up with a piggy bank left behind by another vendor, Fred, a neighbour of Madame Celeste's.

From The Puzzle of Doom, written and illustrated by Dom Pelletier

At school, they meet new student Dale Picklesworth III who is on exchange from the Puzzle Collector's Club of England, another secret club. Leo is not especially friendly to Dale who is bright and athletic, talented and partnering with Tia. 

Everything becomes a little wackier when Leo and Mr. Peabody open a box hidden in the gym's storage area and Tia gets a message about the piggy bank being haunted. With that, Lord Puzzlegood rears his ghostly head in an effort to complete his final puzzle.

From The Puzzle of Doom, written and illustrated by Dom Pelletier

Dom Pelletier always brings the wacky and the fun with The Lunch Club, and, with The Puzzle of Doom, he introduces a new character and an ongoing story. (The puzzle is going to lead into a new adventure in Book 9 of The Lunch Club.) He gives us the supernatural, school- and friend-based tensions that all children will recognize–except for the ghosts, of course–and laughter through the puns, the clever repartee, and zany panic. I love everything about The Lunch Club, from the characters as they act and as they are drawn (by Dom Pelletier) to the humour of their situations and of their interactions, and to the silliness of the

extraordinary plots. In The Puzzle of Doom, Dom Pelletier makes readers laugh but still think about how we get along with others, about how to work together to find solutions to problems, albeit supernatural ones here, and about what the next adventure might be for the "Philately" Club. And by giving us eye-catching art and nutty cartoon characters, Dom Pelletier continues to hook young readers and keep them returning to the Lunch Club.

 

 • • • • • • •

The Lunch Club series

#1 It Came From the Basement
#2 The Curse of the Scarewolf
#3 The Mutant Mouse from Outer Space
#4 Revenge of the Bigfoot
#5 The Return of the Mummy

#6 The Swamp Thingy

#7 Night of the Living Rocks

#8 The Puzzle of Doom