(2) 4-6 In the Last City, one of the final outposts of land against the rising seas, a whale becomes beached atop some of the lower-lying drowned houses. Twelve-year-old Ellie, an energetic, practical-minded girl with a knack for inventions, punctures the carcass to let out the gases of decomposition. Shockingly, a boy around her own age emerges from the hole in the whale. Despite Ellie's protestations, he's taken away by the Inquisition, as Inquisitor Hargrath believes he is the Vessel, a person the noncorporeal Enemy uses as a steppingstone to wreak havoc on the City. But Ellie knows he's just a boy who must be rescued. Chapters about Ellie's efforts to free and then hide Seth (as Ellie's sidekick and fellow orphan Anna names him) alternate with pages from the diary of Claude Hestermeyer, a scholar who became the Vessel a generation ago and was then killed. It's through these diary pages that readers begin to suspect the grand plot twist that controls the entire second half of the book, raising the stakes by several orders of magnitude. Against a deep backstory, Murray deploys levers of guilt and love to ensnare a believable protagonist in an impossible situation, then provides her with the kinds of friends to help her get out of it. The explanation of Seth's origins fits into the story's framework with a satisfying completeness, capping off a psychologically intricate, steampunk-infused horror tale that will please adventure-lovers as well.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2022