The Carnival of Lost Souls
A Handcuff Kid Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
For one charismatic kid, the dangerous world of the Forest of the Dead becomes the setting for the ultimate escape trick in this exciting debut novel.
Jack Carr has been shuttled from foster home to group home to foster home his entire life. The only constant has been his interest in magic, especially handcuff escapes like those mastered by his hero, Harry Houdini. When he’s placed with the Professor, however, he feels like he’s finally found a home—but his new guardian is hiding a dangerous secret.
Years ago the Professor bartered his soul to the undead magician Mussini, and when the payment is due, he sends Jack in his place. Jack must travel with Mussini to the Forest of the Dead, a place in between the real world and the afterlife, where he’s forced to perform in Mussini’s traveling magic show. If he stays in the Forest long enough, he’ll die himself. To find his way home, he’ll have the help of Mussini’s other “minions”—kids stolen just like Jack—and his wits, nothing more. Can he follow the example of his hero, Houdini, and escape the inescapable?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Quimby's entertaining if slight debut offers homage to Houdini filtered through the lens of traditional fantasy tropes. Twelve-year-old Jack, a diehard Houdini fan, has bounced his way through the foster care system and seems to have finally found a good home with a professor. However, the professor, whose name Jack doesn't quite catch, actually sold his soul to an evil magician named Mussini 50 years earlier, and has taken Jack in only to sacrifice the boy in his stead. Now trapped in the Forest of the Dead with the other members of Mussini's traveling magic show, Jack is forced to use his skill with handcuffs to entertain audiences of dead people even as he plots his escape. Quimby stumbles with her adult characters Mussini is a classic mustache-twirling villain who appears to be evil for the sake of being evil, and the professor's manipulation of Jack is never reconciled with his otherwise moral behavior. Her ending is largely unsatisfying as a result, but Jack and his fellow prisoners/performers are fun characters to follow. Ages 10 14.
