RAPACIA

There’s Heaven and there’s Heck, with many places in between. One of those netherworldly places is Rapacia, a circle of Heck designed for the special torment of the greedy, presided over by a “freakish mountain of leering metal” known as the Grabbit. Her brother Milton has made an unprecedented escape from the underworld, but sociopathic Marlo is stuck in Rapacia, where she and her fellow greedy mall rats will be tortured by a world of mall-ish goods always just beyond their reach, a brilliant reimagining of the tale of Tantalus, another denizen of the underworld. Meanwhile, Milton, back in the world of the living, toils in middle school while trying to figure out how to rescue his sister. Basye’s second installment in this planned monumental series is as chock-full of wordplay, clever allusions and puns as the first, and readers who delight in such extravagant humor will find it a heck of a good story. (Fantasy. 9-13)