Join cousins William and Maxine on the adventure of their lives...
On a dreary May day in 1929, William and Maxine arrive on the doorstep of Battersea Manor to spend the summer with a grandfather they barely remember. Whatever the cousins expected, Colonel Battersea isn’t it. Maybe it’s his creepy hidden room cluttered with frightening souvenirs. Or maybe it’s the fact that the colonel doesn’t seem to be as retired as he claims.
When Grandpa receives a cryptic telegram, he promptly whisks the cousins off to New York City so that he can meet an unknown courier and collect a very important package. But before he can do so, Grandpa vanishes without a trace. Maxine and William’s only hope of seeing their grandfather again is to find the courier themselves.
When the cousins stumble upon Nura, a tenacious girl from Turkey, they begin to get some answers. They’re determined to track down the parcel and rescue Colonel Battersea. But with cold-blooded gangsters and a secret society of assassins all vying for the same mysterious object, the trio soon finds themselves in a desperate struggle just to escape the city’s dark streets alive.
“A fast-paced, action-packed adventure.”—Kirkus Reviews
"A youthful mystery worthy of John Bellairs, with lyrical language reminiscent of Edith Nesbit."—Booklist