Rialto

A lockpick’s handiwork and a fascinating list of bequests launch a magic-fueled investigation in this entrancing standalone mystery from Milford (The Raconteur’s Commonplace Book). When the Vicar siblings, 12-year-old artist Dahlia and 14-year-old mystery fan Ivy, travel with their parents from Brooklyn to Rialto, Mo., for their mother to research its long-shuttered theme park, their arrival coincides with a loss for their hosts, the Forwanders. As 14-year-old Remy Forwander begins dispersing letters and objects left behind by his honorary aunt Jess, the missives reveal details about a 40-year-old mystery rooted in Rialto Park’s history and the dense local forest, rumored to have sprung up fully formed overnight. Appreciative descriptions of pattern-based arts (change-ringing, lacemaking, paper-cutting) and pop culture references (Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Unicorn) twine with sturdy in-world lore in a work that’s jam-packed with elegantly limned costumes, props, and settings. Though the sprawling cast is occasionally unwieldy, organic-feeling characterization incorporates nuanced interpersonal tensions and portrayals of living with anxiety. Musing on themes of gatekeeping and subjective truth, it’s a winking whirlwind adventure that serves as both welcoming entrée to and continuation of the author’s carefully engineered oeuvre. Ivy and Dahlia read as white; Remy is Black. Ages 10–up. Agent: Stephen Barr, Writers House. (Apr.)