Go on a treasure hunt with Tuesday Mooney

Saleha Irfan, Senior Sub-Editor/Reporter

Tuesday Mooney is a loner. Rather than socialising, she prefers to spend her time at home watching old “Twin Peaks” and “X-Files.”

Oh, and she regularly talks to her childhood best friend, Abby Hobbes, who disappeared mysteriously in Salem, and is presumed dead.

Yes, right off the bat, there’s a ghost involved.

Tuesday also works as a fundraiser for a hospital who seek wealthy financial donors.

When Vincent Pryce, Boston’s most eccentric billionaire, dies leaving clues for an epic treasure hunt planted all across Boston, our introverted and Goth-fashioned heroine teams up with a quirky crew for the adventure of a lifetime.

Pryce’s treasure hunt is inspired by his hero Edgar Allen Poe and, in his will, he has invited the whole city to participate to find, and keep, his fortune. He was obsessed with the strange and bizarre so it is no surprise that his clues are Poe-inspired.

Kate Racculia

This suits Tuesday all fine since all her life she too has been interested in witches and the supernatural and she just happens to be very good at solving puzzles.

Puzzle-loving Tuesday searches for clue after clue, joined by an eccentric crew: The mysterious Archie, an heir to another wealthy family, her best friend Dex and her young neighbour friend Dorry.

The hunt tests their strength and weaknesses, and, since the team is competing with others around the city who are also in search for the promised prize, they must move quickly.

The story is steeped in the supernatural, yet at its core this book is about friendship, love, loss and life.

Like the treasure hunt, the author, Kate Racculia, uses the many layers of the story to explore the connections of family and friendship and how love and loss affects them.

If there is a magic trick in this novel, it’s that the author somehow has managed to make a series of outlandish events seem reasonably believable.

So, if you like cosy mysteries and ghost stories, then this book is for you.