York: The Clockwork Ghost
by Laura Ruby
Middle School    Walden Pond/HarperCollins    449 pp.
5/19    978-0-06-230696-8    $17.99
e-book ed.  978-0-06-230698-2    $7.99

Despite the destruction of their beloved apartment building at the end of the previous book (York: The Shadow Cipher, rev. 5/17), codebreaking twins Theo and Tess Biedermann, along with artistic puzzle-solver Jaime Cruz, are more committed to solving the impossible-seeming Morningstarr Cipher than ever. Following a complicated trail of clues, which stitches the technologically advanced present to an enigmatic past (both their own and that of the book’s alternate New York City setting), the tweens solve puzzles — bringing stone eagles to life, digging up graves, and uncovering less-than-savory genetic experiments as they go. But these three are not the only ones pursuing the treasure that supposedly awaits at the end of the Cipher, and danger is rapidly closing in. A few narrative contrivances aside, this second installment in Ruby’s steampunk mystery series should delight and enthrall fans.

From the September/October 2019 Horn Book Magazine.