From the Publisher
Praise for Maureen Johnson’s The Shadow Cabinet:
A Spring 2015 Kids’ Indie Next Pick!
“Creepy, tense and wonderful: Don't expect to put this down once it's begun—but be sure to begin with The Name of the Star.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“The plot…is among Johnson’s finest and incorporates creepy bits of backstory, fascinating historical asides, and truly ghoulish side characters.”—Booklist
“Heavily laced with humor and genuine creepiness, this well-crafted thriller is a winner.”—School Library Journal
School Library Journal
01/01/2015
Gr 9 Up—This latest series installment picks up right after the events in The Madness Underneath (Putnam, 2014)—the leader of the ghost police squad, Stephen, has just died. Rory was holding his hand, believing that her touch could keep his ghost nearby, but it's nowhere to be found and she's starting to despair. Then his body disappears. Meanwhile, Rory's classmate Charlotte has been kidnapped by their shared therapist, Jane, who turns out to have a colorful past as a member of a cult obsessed with the Eleusinian Mysteries, mystic rites that blur the lines between life and death. Johnson introduces new villains and expands her world's mythology as Rory, Callum, and Boo try to rescue Charlotte, navigate the Stephen situation, and eventually get caught up in saving the world. Enough background is given that the book could work as a stand-alone, but that would mean readers would be denying themselves the pleasure of the first two titles. Heavily laced with humor and genuine creepiness, this well-crafted thriller is a winner.—Stephanie Klose, Library Journal
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2014-11-04
Transplanted Southerner Rory must once again save London, but this time her foes aren't all completely dead.Upon a less-than-graceful exit from Wexford, her posh London boarding school, Rory is now on the run with the Shades, a clandestine band of police who attend to supernatural phenomena. Stephen, a member of the Shades (and her last kiss), hangs in a precarious state between life and death. With her amplified abilities to both see the dead and possess the power of a mystical stone, Rory could help Stephen. Unfortunately, Jane, a crazed occultist and Rory's ex-therapist, wants to harness Rory's powers and use them to perform the Rites of Demeter in hopes of defeating death and resurrecting two powerful magicians. Rory's London is one where death is but tenuously separated from life, and she must use her abilities to save not only her own friends, but now the city at large. This deftly plotted and richly developed third installment skillfully weaves together the plotlines from its predecessors, creating a carefully and engrossingly built world. Moving away from what could have easily been a predictable, cookie-cutter ghost-busting template in every book, the series has gracefully evolved into a heady mix of ghost story, myth, conspiracies and history.Creepy, tense and wonderful: Don't expect to put this down once it's begun—but be sure to begin with The Name of the Star (2011). (Supernatural thriller. 13-18)
