Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking: A 14 Day Mystery

Moxie Fleece has high expectations for the summer after eighth grade, but a visit from a “psychotic redheaded stranger” changes its trajectory. The woman tells Moxie that her family has two weeks to return the “items” Moxie’s grandfather hid years earlier for a notorious gangster, Sully Cupcakes. Moxie’s grandfather is now living in a care facility, due to his Alzheimer’s disease, which leaves math whiz Moxie and her asthmatic best friend Ollie, a geocaching aficionado, to figure out what the items are and to find them. Soon, they are hunting down artwork stolen in a famous (and, in real life, unsolved) heist from the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston. Confident, outspoken Moxie sets up a geometry proof to organize evidence, and Ollie puts his geocaching skills to work as the two sift through clues that lead them throughout the city. Dionne (Notes from an Accidental Band Geek) is attentive to details of Boston institutions, music, and geography, and the believable dialogue and characters, complicated family dynamics, and threat of danger make this mystery hard to put down. Ages 10–up. Agent: Sally Harding, the Cooke Agency. (July)