The Mystery of Mystic Mountain
by Janet Fox
Middle School    Simon    288 pp.
10/24    9781665956666    $17.99
e-book ed.  9781665956680    $10.99

Twelve-year-old Becca hadn’t planned on being dragged to a ranch in Montana for her summer vacation, and with wildlife warnings and a spotty internet connection, Far Away Ranch is a far cry from the resort spa she’d been promised. Hoping to salvage her summer, Becca befriends Jon, a boy her age whose father works on the ranch. With a notebook full of his great-grandmother’s tales about legendary outlaw Pearlhandle Pete, Jon is determined to track down Pete’s hidden bounty, rumored to be on nearby Mystic Mountain. Becca and Jon team up, along with two other kids staying at the ranch, to solve a generations-old mystery involving a treasure map, bank heists, ghosts, and family secrets. The stakes are raised when a smarmy social media influencer lets on that he plans to unearth Pete’s fortune first, and by any means necessary. Becca and Jon embark on a thrilling, and sometimes haunting, journey that will change both their lives. They also open up to each other, Jon missing his late mother and great-grandmother and Becca worrying about her parents’ separation and her middle-school friendship woes. With themes of family, grief, and loss, Fox has crafted a multifaceted mystery novel with even more to the story than clues and riddles.

From the ">January/February 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.