SOLVE YOUR OWN MYSTERY

Jones invites readers to assume the role of sleuth and direct the investigation in the wake of the theft of a valuable museum artifact in this second entry in a British series.

A lively cast of mythical beings sets this stand-alone volume apart from the usual run of Choose Your Own Adventure–style capers. It seems that in Haventry, “a very ordinary town” populated by “vampires, werewolves, ghosts, goblins and various other strange creatures of the night,” the Time Sponge, which will temporarily halt time when squeezed, has vanished from MOPS, the local Museum of Magical Objects and Precious Stones. A plethora of suspects present themselves, ranging from banshee journalist Gretchen Barfly Sewer to yeti private eye Klaus Solstaag and a trio of wheelchair-using merfolk spouting scatological verse (“I knew a weak-bladdered mermaid / I think her name was Norma / And when you swam behind her / The water was much warmer”). As the possibly guilty yeti’s unnamed apprentice, it’s up to you, the human reader, to decide at significant points which fork in the plot’s road to take. Adding another clever twist, the looping plotlines lead to multiple denouements, allowing readers to flip back at will to earlier scenes and take paths to different futures, as the sponge’s owner, a mystical time-bending lobster named Bernard, explains at the end. Forshaw’s comical visuals highlight a diverse variety of humans and creatures.

Monstrous fun.