Not What It Seems! The Thief Knot: A Greenglass House Story by Kate Milford

Marzana and Nialla are dissatisfied. Desperate for some excitement, they had lurked at a sidewalk table with their coffees, surveilling what they earnestly hoped was a robbery about to take place inside the jewelry store. Instead, it appeared to be the purchase of a surprise engagement ring for a happy young couple.

So the guy had looked a bit shifty. A high percentage of who lived within the city-within-the-city of Nagspeake called the Liberty were shifty--or had been to one degree or another in a previous life," thought Marzana.

"I should have known it was nothing...because... we live in the Liberty, and this is the place where nothing happens."

The neighborhood of the Liberty should be an intriguing environment, being the sanctuary city of former seafaring smugglers. And when talk spreads of the kidnapping of ten-year-old Peony Hyde, and Marzana's sometimes investigator parents receive a copy of the ransom note delivered by the mysterious Emmett, who brought up the possible involvement of someone called "Snakebird," Marzana seizes on solving the case as her remedy for ennui. With Nialla as co-sleuth, she organizes a group to help in their investigations, even calling their friend Milo, resident of the peculiar Greenglass House, where they had been previously involved in a puzzling Christmas enigma, for advice.

Marzana and Nialla recruit fans of fantasy fiction from Lucky's bookstore--Emilia, privy to many secrets of their school's historic building, Ciro, a self-declared born camoufleur, J. J., a magician, and Milo's offering, Meddie, a sometimes visible ghost resident at Greenglass House whose talents including invisibility, walking through walls, and supernatural sight and hearing. When the crew of six discover that their substitute math teacher is the great nephew of Andrew Cormorant, called "the Snakebird," they suspect that the kidnapped Peony may be hidden at the apartment of their real math teacher and indeed they find a little girl chained there--one who turns out to be a counterfeit Peony Hyde, whose real name is, interestingly, Tasha Cormorant.

Now, as Sherlock would say, "The case is afoot!" Marzana's crew, self-named the Thief Knot, discover an undercover conductor on the mostly abandoned Nagspeake subway system, the Belowground, who takes the young sleuths to a nightmarish abandoned station, overgrown with the ornamental ironwork which infests the Liberty, overgrowing buildings, walkways, and especially subway tunnels, where the real kidnap victim is perhaps to be found.

With a plot with as many convolutions as the enchanted ironwork of The Liberty, Kate Milford's forthcoming third book in series, The Thief Knot: A Greenglass House Story (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020), nothing or no one is quite what it seems in a place where time and setting overlay each other. Like the Harry Potter series, the plot draws on the strengths of the young friends to solve a puzzle with many pieces, a band of unlikely mates--differently-abled in abilities, knowledge, and exceptional powers, but one in loyalty.

This is no quick-read Nancy Drew mystery, but one to be taken slowly, savored for its atmosphere, its murky clues, and shifting plot. In the Liberty, the haven for old secrets, Marzana not only helps solve the mystery of the missing student, but also some of the mysteries of her own parents' hidden histories. Milford's over-arching theme of connection, the links between people, places, and their joint history, provides a part-fantasy/mystery tale perfect for middle readers who like to solve puzzles that range from relationships to crimes of the past.

Previous books in this series are Greenglass House (read review here) and sequel Ghosts of Greenglass House (read review here).