The Cartographers

A campus novel, a library novel, a work of magical realism: Shepherd (The Book of M) deftly blends all three in an engrossing tale involving maps, murders, and rooms that are not there. Cartographer Nell Young had a bright future until her father inexplicably ruined her career. Now this legend who ruled the map rooms of the New York Public Library is dead, and his legacy seems to be a tattered, cheap map, the kind that was once handed out at gas stations when $10 filled the tank. But some maps, no matter how seemingly outdated, are magical. This one sends Nell and a growing cast of comrades into her parents’ past, illuminating the outlines of terra incognita. Readers will be hooked and find their imaginations sparking as they turn the pages. Shepherd matches the drama and whimsy of the story with quick, straightforward prose that keeps her multilayered and accelerating plot neatly under control.