Chaos Under New York

It all begins when Ananka sees a sinkhole across the street from the New York brownstone where she lives. She sees a tiny person crawling out from inside it, immediately throws a coat and boots on over her pajamas, and goes to investigate. She finds a book and a ladder, and is on the trail of an adventure. There’s a city under New York, the Shadow City. And more than anything, Ananka wants to find it. But it seems that someone has found it first — and they want her to know all about it. Could it be the intriguing Kiki Strike, Ananka’s almost invisible and strange classmate?

Interested — and bored out of her mind by being ignored by her over-educated and under-socialized parents — Ananka determines to find out what makes Kiki tick, and in so doing, find out the secrets of Shadow City. Ananka tails Kiki — poorly — throughout New York for two months, trying to figure out where she goes and what she does. An invitation from Kiki to get to know her is surprising — and irresistible. Within weeks, Ananka is part of the Irregulars, a group of intrepid girls who use their particular talents to not only help New York’s hapless citizens, but to map out and discover the secrets of Shadow City, once the haunt of gangsters and smugglers, and possibly endless treasure.

But all is not as it seems. First comes the realization of the true danger that they are in. And once everything cuts loose, Kiki vanishes. Who was she, anyway? And what did she want? Ananka thinks she’s grown out of the whole Kiki stage… and then Kiki comes back, with one more request to be trusted — for one last adventure.

An unbelievably labyrinthine mystery, Kirsten Miller’s Kiki Strike is like taking the red pill to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Full of plots, counterplots, kidnappings, spies, getaway Vespas, the FBI, and learn-as-you-go detective tips, this juicy mystery is so busy that you forget that the girls involved, the Irregulars, are all lapsed Girl Scouts with school and parents to worry about. But who’s got time for parents when it’s time to save New York?