Lost Boy

Matt Lanchester, newly transplanted to a small Welsh town, is out biking when he imagines a near-collision with a car, only to land next to a roadside memorial to a boy with his own initials. Matt begins to experience the dead boy’s ghostly presence as he confronts several puzzles involving the missing son of a local farmer, a turn-of-the-century legend of a lost boy named Tommy Jones and the circumstances surrounding the vehicular death of Martin Lloyd. Newbery (Set in Stone ) seamlessly interleaves Tommy Jones’s tale among the larger narrative’s own levels of suspense—chiefly, whether Matt will succumb to the bullying of the town punks, who claim to want revenge for Martin’s death, before he figures out the connections among the three lost boys. With its imaginative melding of present-day concerns, good storytelling, lush descriptions of the landscape and even a faithful dog, this novel will ensnare readers. Ages 8-12. (Mar.)