The shadow cipher / Laura Ruby.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"The pleasures of the novel go far beyond the crackling, breathless plot and the satisfaction of watching the puzzle fall into place. The book is shot through with humor, both laugh-out-loud and subtle." --New York Times Book Review

From National Book Award finalist and Printz Award winner Laura Ruby comes 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.

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.

"An epic mission to solve one of the greatest mysteries of their time. I loved this book. It is full of twists and turns" (from the Brightly.com review, which named York: The Shadow Cipher one of the best books of 2017).

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In this entertaining race through an alternate-history New York City, first in the York trilogy, several children attempt to unravel their city's greatest unsolved puzzle in order to save their historic apartment building from an unscrupulous real-estate tycoon. Twins Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz are determined to solve the clues left behind by the Morningstarrs, legendary architects and inventors who dazzled New York with fantastic technology and skyscrapers before vanishing. As the intrepid trio follows a chain of previously undiscovered hints, they're drawn deeper into the truth behind the so-called Old York Cipher. Printz Award-winner Ruby (Bone Gap) conjures a compelling vision of a city rife with enigmas and secrets through third-person narration that highlights the key roles played by the friends and a young neighbor named Cricket. The details of Ruby's alternate New York fascinate-this is a world that features familiar pop culture references (Legos, Nancy Drew, Marvel superheroes), which are subtly tweaked and accompanied by intriguing tech, such as the robotic caterpillars that keep the Underway (aka subway) clean. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers clamoring for book two. Ages 8-12. Agent: Tina Wexler, ICM. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Review

Gr 5-8-In an alternate present-day New York, three seventh graders embark on a citywide adventure as they attempt to solve a centuries-old cipher in order to save their home. In the mid-19th century, the Morningstarr twins, brilliant inventors who created steampunk-esque technology and iconic architecture that greatly influenced New York, disappeared, leaving a puzzle for the city, known as the Old York Cipher. They bequeathed a large sum of money to their employee, Ms. Ava Oneal, as well as the building that the modern-day Biedermann twins Theo and Tess, along with their friend Jaime Cruz, live in and are trying to save. Ava, an intelligent and mysterious woman, sets in motion the events leading up to the present day. Unsure whom to trust and facing dangers around every corner, Theo, Tess, and Jaime must solve the cipher if they want to save New York as they know it. Ruby's latest is a high-stakes mystery novel filled with intriguing puzzles, solid world-building, and diverse characters. The Morningstarrs were immigrants to America and funded projects that were beneficial to people of all backgrounds. The wealthy real estate developer who wants to evict people from the Morningstarr apartment buildings is an antithesis to the Morningstarr legacy, which the teens are trying to protect. VERDICT An engaging series opener that will leave readers eagerly awaiting future installments.-Marissa Lieberman, East Orange Public Library, NJ © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Twins Tess and Theo live in one of the only remaining buildings designed by the Morningstarrs, visionary twins who built glittering structures in nineteenth-century New York, as well as the Cipher, a notorious, citywide puzzle leading to fantastic treasure. Now, in the twenty-first century, Tess and Theo's building has been purchased by a mercenary developer, but Tess grasps at a shred of hope: if they solve the Cipher, they might be able to keep their home. With robust, architectural world building, Ruby reveals an alternate New York teeming with mechanical marvels and compelling secrets. This New York still has some familiar features, however: a rich culture of diversity alongside insidious greed and wealth inequality. Tess and Theo, and their friend and neighbor Jaime, have distinct voices and idiosyncrasies that, though some might consider them odd, become marvelous strengths. As the trio traverse the city, they're often baffled by how easily clues fall into their hands, but Ruby slyly sidesteps those coincidences by giving the Cipher itself a mysterious, subtle sort of agency. In this smart, immersive series starter, Ruby expertly juggles stunning plot choreography, realistic stakes in a captivating fantasy setting, well-wrought characters, and flashes of sharp cultural commentary. It's a brainy romp with a worrying heart, and while many plot threads are resolved, Theo, Tess, and Jaime will surely, thankfully, be back for more.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2017 Booklist

Horn Book Review

When their (alternate reality) New York City apartment building is bought by a scheming real-estate developer, seventh-grade twins Tess and Theo Biedermann and their neighbor Jaime Cruz devise a plan to solve the Old York Cipher and thus save their home. The Cipher had been created in the nineteenth century by the brilliant Morningstarr twins (after whom Tess and Theo were named), inventors of the citys mechanical wizardry--streets paved with solar panels, metal caterpillars that clean the Underway trains, and elevators that go in every direction--who then disappeared without a trace. As Tess, Theo, and Jaime take a fresh look at the Cipher, a new path of enticing and dangerous clues leads them deeper into the Morningstarrs mystery and closer to treacherous villains. Rubys nuanced trio of protagonists strikes a balance of emotional vulnerability (the twins coping with their grandfathers onset of dementia, Jaime with his fathers increasing absence, and all three with the impending loss of their home) and resilience. The equally thoughtful vision of an alternative New York, both historical and present-day, pulsates right off the page, with geography, history, and steampunk-esque machines thoroughly integrated into the thrum of a strange but recognizable city. Weaving one web of secrets even as it works to unravel another, Rubys story will have both mystery and sci-fi fans reading and rereading in anticipation of the next installment. anastasia m. collins (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

Printz winner Ruby's middle-grade series opener gracefully tackles magic, history, and gentrification. When a potato-faced real estate mogul buys their historic, rent-controlled building, three middle schoolersbushy-haired, olive-skinned Jewish twins Tess and Theo and brown-skinned Trinidadian-Cuban neighbor Jaimeband together to solve a centuries-old mystery. At once thoroughly modern (a solar-powered city filled with a genuinely diverse cast of characters) and charmingly old-fashioned (steampunk machinery, ciphers, and a mystery at times reminiscent of Ellen Raskin or E.L. Konigsburg), Ruby's vision of New York brims with innovative details that perfectly support her themes of friendship, family, and history. Emotionally fragile, highly intelligent Tess and Theo are balanced by the less-volatile, artistically gifted Jaime: all are complex, nuanced adolescents. They throw themselves into the Morningstarr Cipher, named for the twins who built much of New York's astounding infrastructure (elevators that go sideways, subways that climb buildings), hoping to discover a treasurebut the Cipher "tr[ies] to solve you" as you solve it. This first volume opens up an ever expanding sense of magic, culminating in a bittersweet ending that promises bigger things to come. It's a doorstopper, but other than one brief dip, the pacing keeps the pages turning, while the details reward close reading. The past informs the present as the review informs readers: don't let this one go. (Mystery/fantasy. 10-15) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Laura Ruby writes fiction for adults, young adults, and children. Her works include Good Girls, Play Me, Bad Apple, Lily's Ghosts, The Wall and the Wing, The Chaos King, the York Trilogy, and a collection of interconnected short stories about blended families for adults entitled I'm Not Julia Roberts. She won the 2016 Michael L. Printz Award for Bone Gap. She teaches at Hamline University's Masters in Writing for Children Program.

(Bowker Author Biography)