A month ago, 15-year-old Jack and his best friend Weezy found a small, mysterious pyramid and a body in the huge wasteland called the Pine Barrens (Jack: Secret Histories, 2008). The body led to other deaths; and though Weezy was certain the pyramid was linked to her obsession, the secret history of the world, they lost it. Weezy thinks it was stolen by members of the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order. Now as the two find a stone structure similar to the lost pyramid in the Barrens, a local five-year-old goes missing and there are sightings of someTHING in the swampy bog. Is the visiting circus involved? The Septimus Lodge? And what, if anything, can Jack do about Mr. Vivino, who is abusing his wife and daughter? Set in 1983, Wilson’s second in a trilogy about the teen years of his Repairman Jack character is a periodically breathtaking thriller. Readers of the adult RJ novels will enjoy bringing their background to this reading, but, luckily for kid readers, knowledge of the series is not vital to enjoying this smart, spooky mystery adventure. (Thriller. YA)
