The Shadow Cipher (#1 York)

Author(s): Laura Ruby

Senior Fiction

From National Book Award finalist Laura Ruby comes a visionary epic set in a New York City at once familiar and wholly unexpected. It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines, and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher-a puzzle laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however, the puzzle has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern world is little more than a tourist attraction. Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a Morningstarr apartment-until a real estate developer announces that the city has agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings. Their likely destruction means the end of a dream long held by the people of New York. And if Tess, Theo, and Jaime want to save their home, they have to prove that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to solve it.

It’s New York, but not as you know it. Laura Ruby’s new series 'York' is an intriguing story about three children trying to save a building from developers. The book opens with a scene set in 1855 - a feisty young woman, Ava, is getting the better of a man who has followed her through the streets of New York. He’s after information about her employers, the famous Morningstarr twins. The genius twins were great inventors and magnificent engineers. They created mechanical machines (bugs and caterpillars) that cleaned the streets, underways and overways with sleek silver carriages, solar winged cars, buildings with complex elevators that go every which way, and other mechanical wonders and automata. The action quickly moves to present-day New York where Tess and Theo Biedermann (geeky twins named after the Morningstarrs) live in a Morningstarr building. Determined not to be booted out of their building, they get together with fellow resident and friend Jamie and set about solving a puzzle, The Old York Cipher, a puzzle that people have been trying to solve for over one hundred years. There are clues all over New York; there is even a dedicated society that spends hours collecting information and analysing the clues in a giant and wondrous archive. Yet few have got beyond the first clue. Tess, Theo and Jamie are great characters who bounce off each other and offer different perspectives to solve the cipher. The first of this trilogy, this book is called The Shadow Cipher, which implies that it’s possible that everyone’s been looking in the wrong places, or maybe there’s more than one cipher. This sets up the series nicely and leaves enough hanging to keep you looking forward to the next volumes. Add to this cross-bred and genetically altered ‘pets’ or ‘service animals’ - Tess has a wonder cat-wolf called Nine; a whole host of great side characters - the younger children in the apartment building, Cricket - a imaginative, sly and sharp six year old - and her brother Otto (a ninja, of course); the very tall Mr Stoop and very short Mr. Pinscher, henchmen of the property developer, Slant; and a fantastical New York dotted with the Morningstarrs' technology, and plenty of city history woven into the story line. An enjoyable, page-turning adventure with clues, mysteries, strange consequences and extremely likeable characters. 


{STELLA}


Product Information

From National Book Award finalist Ruby ("Bone Gap") comes the first book in an epic alternate-history series about three kids who try to solve the greatest mystery of the modern world: a puzzle and treasure hunt laid into the very streets and buildings of New York City.

Laura Ruby is the author of books for adults, teens, and children, including the Printz Award-winning and National Book Award finalist Bone Gap, the Edgar-nominated mystery Lily's Ghosts, the Book Sense Pick Good Girls, and the acclaimed novels Play Me and Bad Apple. She is on the faculty of Hamline University's MFA in writing for children and young adults program and lives in the Chicago area. You can visit her online at www.lauraruby.com and on Twitter.

General Fields

  • : 9780062306944
  • : HarperCollins Publishers
  • : HarperCollins
  • : 0.328
  • : January 2018
  • : .992 Inches X 5.125 Inches X 7.625 Inches
  • : August 2017
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Laura Ruby
  • : Paperback
  • : 1804
  • : Dave Stevenson
  • : English
  • : 813.6
  • : 496
  • : YFC