UNDER THE SURFACE

Harbison and Johnson’s YA mystery follows teen best friends who catch on to strange—perhaps supernatural—things stirring in their neighborhood.

The small town of Settlers Valley, Utah, is shocked by a brutal murder in 1999 when authorities discover the entirely boneless body of Jessica Townsend, who lived in the “sister town” of Bakersville. People’s fears and interest wane as the case grows cold, but for best friends Nate and Kyle, things are just getting started. In the early 2000s, Jessica’s parents move into the boys’ neighborhood with Canadian exchange student Cassy. This leads to a string of unexplained mysteries, from the enigmatic agents who subsequently appear in Settlers Valley toa system of tunnels over a century old to the weird thing in Kyle’s closet. Even if the boys don’t understand all of what’s going on, a dangerous someone may still think they know too much. Harbison (in his debut) and Johnson deliver a densely packed tale that features a surreal setting and a number of mythical beings. Much of the novel, especially the first half, is humorous, thanks to the never-ending banter between Nate and Kyle. They playfully argue over Kyle’s adamant beliefs of aliens, cryptids, and more (Kyle carries around The Bestiary, a book of “every known nontraditional beast on Earth”); Nate only believes in human monsters (“[a] little girl was brutally murdered, and nobody wants to admit that a human could have done this, so they let their imaginations go wild”). The supernatural elements crop up in the latter half and prove to be frequently baffling, to both the characters and the readers. Nods to Hollywood movies are abundant, most notably in the intermittent, nonlinear scenes of the friends in a local video store that are largely unrelated to the main plot. The uncredited black-and-white artwork prefacing each chapter is, like the story, lighthearted, featuring images of cryptids that are likely meant to be Kyle’s childish doodles.

Charming dual protagonists headline this twisty, entertaining story that boasts series potential.