THE GRAVITY THIEF

Two gifted tweens’ investigation into stolen paintings pits them against a villain constructing a chaos-generating machine in this third installment of a middle-grade series.

Someone has purloined the Vermeer painting The Music Lesson from the Emily Sears Museum in Boston. During her class field trip, 12-year-old Lucy Nightingale lingers at the crime scene and hears a boy crying—a ghost, perhaps. Sounds like a case for SLARP; through Sam and Lucy’s Anomalies Research Project, she and her pal Sam Winter look into “unusual happenings.” Lucy returns to the museum after hours and learns the apparent ghost is Peter, a young boy from the stolen painting. Speaking to other “Visitors” from the museum’s artworks, she decides to recover the work, as without it, Peter’s lamprolite (essentially his life force) will fade quickly. It seems thieves have been regularly taking Vermeer paintings, all for a mastermind who wants the shapes hidden within the art. They’re the key to building a world-changing machine, which the mastermind wants to use for manipulating gravity and sending things, like entire countries, into a black hole. As this villain is associated with the Konference, “a secret society of geniuses” that’s initiating Sam, the tweens have a chance to thwart the evil plan. Lodge’s brisk fantasy is delightful thanks to its two investigating friends. They complement each other—“field agent” Lucy handles physical tasks that “unathletic” Sam avoids—and are never condescending. The story touches on a host of scientific concepts that characters usually comprehensively explain. Moreover, there are intermittent photographs of superlative art—not solely Vermeer’s—along with Hilaire’s bold, colorful, cartoon-style illustrations. Readers new to the series may be taken aback by the abrupt appearances of supernatural elements, from Lucy and Sam’s telepathy to the latter’s asserting that Quetzals, his “super phone” invention, “aren’t dependent on earth technology.” But that should prompt readers’ interest in this series’ preceding installments.

A superb young duo leads this smart and consistently diverting fantasy.