The Carnival of Lost Souls

Gr 4—6—Jack Carr has never really belonged. A foster child who has been bounced from home to home, he has one constant in his life: his obsession with Harry Houdini. Jack's luck changes when he goes to live with the professor, an old eccentric who is looking for a boy interested in magic. But all is not as it seems at the idyllic house. The professor had sold his soul to the Amazing Mussini, a magician of the dead. Jack suddenly finds that he is going to the Land of the Dead in place of the professor and is part of Mussini's Traveling Carnival. His only wish: to escape before he joins the dead. But in his way are his own success at performing his handcuff act and the brilliant mind of Mussini himself. Quimby keeps readers feeling Jack's tension and danger throughout the story. The Land of the Dead is a unique world with minotaurlike guards and bored dead people. The chapters are interspersed with excerpts in verse of a biography of Houdini. Though a little distracting, they do reflect what is going on in Jack's mind and are perhaps supposed to represent the book Jack always carries with him. Readers are sure to look forward to future adventures of the Handcuff Kid.—Clare A. Dombrowski, Amesbury Public Library, MA