THE SORCERER’S SECRET

Mebus (probably) concludes his tangled but inventive epic, cranking up the struggle among New York City’s supernatural residents to a climactic battle in Central Park. Even as the power-mad magician Willem Kieft is gathering an army of minor gods and murderous spirits on the pretext of wiping out the indigenous Munsees once and for all, young Rory and his indomitable little sister Bridget set out on a frantic, five-borough search for fragments of a certain diary that may hold the key to both their stricken mother’s life and Kieft’s defeat. Though a partial list of names at the front isn’t going to help readers keep track of the teeming cast, there’s plenty of action and humor (“God of Spies! That’s so me!” warbles flamingly idiotic bit player Nathan Hale) to compensate—plus spectacular magic, stunning revelations and encounters with such New York icons as Teddy Roosevelt and a subterranean alligator “easily the size of a tour bus.” The ultimate victory is credibly hard-won, and though the tale’s internal logic doesn’t bear close inspection, overall it’s turned out to be a grand adventure. (Fantasy. 11-13)