School Library JournalGr 6–10—Petrucha combines historical fiction with a classic detective story and even some hints of steampunk. He paints a detailed picture of late-19th-century New York, featuring reform-minded police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt and Pinkerton Detectives. Carver Young is desperate for information about his father—desperate enough to risk death-by-meat-cleaver (a not so subtle allusion to the Sword of Damocles) and break into the orphanage's files. For his efforts he is rewarded with a single, cryptic, hand-written page from his father. The would-be sleuth then begins an exciting investigation that takes him all over New York City, from the sewers to high-society soirees, from an insane asylum to an underground crime lab, and from the relative safety and boredom of the orphanage to life-or-death, high-speed chases.
