Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City

Boy oh boy, if you want to sink your teeth into a good adventure story that begins in a sinkhole, you’ve come to the right pocket park. Pocket park, you know, those tiny fenced in gardens carved out between two brownstones in a city like, say, why yes, New York City. The NYPD cordoned the sinkhole off with yellow construction tape before the morning was over, but that just increased its appeal. Go on, you know you want to find out why Ananka Fishbein went down the hole and whom she discovered there.

My goodness, I haven’t even mentioned Kiki Strike yet. Kirsten Miller has created an incredibly resourceful, undernourished, pale-haired junior spy who takes NYC by storm. In her debut novel, Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City, Miller sends us haring off into the underground tunnels with a troop worthy of their Holmesian appellation: the Irregulars. Dee Dee, Luz, Betty, and Oona, all ex-Girl Scouts, join Ananka and Kiki as they combine their many talents (forgery and explosives, to name a few) to explore the shadowy bowels of New York.

Just think what’s beneath Manhattan Island: tunnels for natural gas, electricity, water, sewer, subways, all interlacing beneath the great skyscrapers and heavy stone buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Rats, bodies, vaults, opium dens…well yeah! Where do you think the criminal and moneyed classes hid their loot and drugs and bodies from the police? Underground! Although the other girls don’t realize it at first, Kiki is on a serious, international security mission but she cannot achieve success without their help. And who better to come to her aid, with bombs, costumes, and maps, than a crack team of girls?

Go ahead, be an Irregular and dig deeply into this one, and don't forget the next installment: The Empress's Tomb. You won’t regret it for an instant, except for the, uh, rats…. Drat, where is that pest repellent, Dee Dee?!

Ever had any "underground" adventures? Speak up!