Kiki Strike- Into the Shadow City (Kiki Strike #1)

Once again I have decided to upload a trilogy. This one is set up in New York City in the present time.

I found it while randomly browsing for books at the local library. I guess I just randomly pulled it out and really liked the story and decided to read it. I definitely do not regret that decision.

Here's the cover-

Ananka Fisher's life is completely normal until the day she saw the strange girl with pale skin and white hair in the back of her classroom. To find out more about her, Ananka follows this girl around after school. The only clues she figures out are that she visits a graveyard filled with marble tombstones and that she goes to a certain coffee shop at a certain time every day.

One day, while trying to spy on her, Ananka is caught. This girl introduces herself as Kiki Strike, Master Detective of the Underground City.

Those two and a few of Kiki's friends finally make their descent into the Shadow City. It looks as if people lived there, but left in a hurry. There are clothes inside the closets, even the sheets on the beds are rumpled as if someone suddenly got up and left.

Later, one of Kiki's friends Luz finds something that could help them in their exploring. It is a map she copied off the computer at a service station. Called the NYC map, it has details about exactly where there are gas and water pipes and such.

Sadly Luz only has the bottommost layer. If someone were to obtain all three layers, it would be a terrorist's best friend.

At school, the most popular girl, Sidonia is getting more and more vicious towards Ananka. Why? Both of them didn't know the other existed until then.

Along with that, someone has been kidnapping kids whose parents work in reference to the NYC map. Whoever it is wants all three layers and fast. It's up to Ananka, Kiki and their team to stop them from getting all three layers.

My thoughts- (Contains Spoilers)

I thought the plot flowed very well and was really interesting throughout. It didn't feel like there were any filler chapters in the middle, and the ending made sense.

Really it seems strange that halfway through, they quit when one of DeeDee's explosives hits a water main and they get hurt. Then they wait nearly two years before resuming their adventure.

After reading this, I understood why the sidekick is always a foil to the detective. Kiki can understand things instantly and then she has to explain it all to Ananka. Speaking of her, it was really useful that her parents were real bibliophiles. Their house was filled to the brim with books on every subject, even underground New York City.

This is probably my favorite series because the fast paced mysteries just keep on coming.

There are two more books in this series if you're interested. The Empress's Tomb is the second book and The Darkness Dwellers is the third book.