This series was interesting because we have a bunch of beetles where we live -- gorgeous green iridescent fig beetles, stink beetles, June bugs, Palo Verde beetles, Mesquite bugs and more. Of those, the only one I'd even remotely entertain on my shoulder would be a fig beetle and they tend -- unlike the beetles in this series -- to be exceedingly stupid and bonk into, well, whatever's in their flight path. And never handle a Palo Verde beetle - they bite!
Darkus Cuttle's father vanishes without a trace from the beetle room in the museum where he works. The 12-year-old goes to live with an Uncle who's determined to figure out what happened to his brother, and Darkus starts a new school, where he makes two new friends, Virginia and Bertolt.
He's about to get pounded by the school bully one day after school when a particularly large stag beetle saves him by flying into the bully's face and scaring him off. He decides not to keep the big guy in a cardboard box and instead tries to set him free. But the beetle seems to understand the boy, and sticks with Darkus and travels on his shoulder.
The beetles live in a pile of refuse in the apartment next door belonging to ever-bickering brothers, Pickering and Humphrey. Humphrey catches Darkus one time, when he tries to see into the apartment, and ties him up and locks him in the room with the beetles. He threatens to cook Darkus into a pie.
The beetles save Darkus and around the same time, he and his Uncle go to the museum to search for clues one more time and they find ...his father's glasses, but also an ominous yellow ladybug. Within minutes, the beetle collection's sponsor, Lucretia Cutter, shows up demanding to know who's been in her exhibit.
But there's something very odd about Lucretia, and Darkus pieces together how she and his father knew each other. As Darkus gets closer to finding his father, the fate of the beetles lies in his and his friends' hands.
Lucretia Cutter is back with a vengeance, and we get to see her full glory -- gory -- beetle attributes. In many ways, she's a great villain -- beetle legs, a carapace, multi-faceted eyes that must remain behind sunglasses so as to not freak everyone out.
Darkus gets his father back, and while recuperating with his Uncle, Darkus, Virginia and Bertolt focus on the beetle hide-away in the sewer. They know Lucretia is out to find the beetles, and it's just a matter of time before she does just that.
But, before she does the unthinkable (and this was a nice, tragic twist, I might add, for an MG book, and no, I'm not going to reveal what it is, because then you wouldn't enjoy reading it as much, would you?), Darkus' father decides he must stop Lucretia and protect Darkus -- by giving himself over to her.
No, I won't spoil how it ends. Yes, there's a third book, but my library only has it as an audiobook, and well, I don't really enjoy reading audiobooks (takes too long), so... shame. Oh well. I'll wait a bit and get it as an ILL from another collection, when it's older.
