THE EXTRAORDINARY AND UNUSUAL ADVENTURES OF HORATIO LYLE

This atmospheric tween mystery is set in Victorian London. Constable-turned-scientist Lyle gets a case: The Bank of England has been robbed, and an ancient Chinese plate has gone missing. Lyle’s young sidekicks are Cockney Tess, a streetwise, profane, pickpocket-thief, highborn Thomas and Tate, Horatio’s faithful hound. Corrupt politicians and Tseiqin with green eyes keep the trio dodging crossbows, guns and knives. The Tibetan Tseiqins are ancient environmentalists who see Industrial Revolution–era England as under threat from technology, specifically metal, which puts them at odds with the ultra-rationalist Horatio, whose personal god is Faraday and who tinkers with electricity, magnetism and chemical weaponry. The showdown is at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Vignettes of a carriage in front of St. Paul’s decorate each chapter’s beginning; readers will notice that the carriage moves across the page as the story progresses. Murdered bodies and minds held captive by the Tseiqin—“Don’t look at the eyes,” is the watchword—keep the readers running as fast as the carriages. Publishes simultaneously with its sequel, The Obsidian Dagger (978-1-904233-79-4). (Mystery. 11 & up)