The Night Tourist

The Night Tourist, by Katherine Marsh, (Hyperion, 2007,) another Edgar Award Winner, in my mind is more of a ghost story than a mystery. I guess it falls under the family secret mystery category. In spite of suffering genre confusion (I like when things fall into neat little categories) I loved this book.

It's about Jack, a boy who is hit by a car and sent by his father to visit a mysterious psychologist in New York (because Jack is acting strangely.) While in New York, he tours the subway system, where he meets Uri. Uri takes him into the underworld of Greek mythology. Only this underworld is home to deceased New Yorkers--not Greeks. Jack is a classics scholar, so this all makes sense to him. I'm not, but it still made sense to me. In fact, I enjoyed learning about the underworld anew. It made me hope the Greeks were right.

By day, the dead are crammed into the underworld. But by night, they are free to roam the city. They can attend--or even write and perform plays, hang out at bars with poets, go sledding, or visit the library. There is a hilarious scene in which Jack watches a death orientation video in the library. It is a cheeseball training program in which cab drivers, police officers and others declare, "I'm a New York ghost!" Uri is not as enthusiastic about her ghostly status. She is hell-bent on coming back to life.

Some ghosts work or cultivate ghostly friendships, but many roam their old "haunts"-- wherever they hung out in life. See, they are only in the underworld because they have unresolved issues. Once those are solved, they go to something like heaven. Naturally, their "issues" lurk in the shadows of their old stomping grounds.

Now, Jack's mother is dead. So he decides to find her in the underworld. In fact, he believes this is his destiny and this is why he got a "golden ticket" into the underworld--a rare priviledge. But when he and Uri visit the records bureau, they see an asterick by her name--meaning she's done something taboo in the underworld. This is the family secret they are trying to solve. Meanwhile, Jack learns that Uri has a secret of her own. It's a tragic one, but it doesn't bring the whole world down with it, unlike some grownup books I've read. Together, Uri and Jack track down his mother and try to bring Uri back to the living world.

The verdict...a beautifully imagined family secret mystery populated with likeable main characters, quirky bit characters, a few laugh-out-loud funny parts, and a few heartbreaking ones, too.