Codebreaker by Jay Martel

CODEBREAKER by Jay Martel is an action-packed young adult novel which is highly entertaining. This debut is written by the husband and wife writing team of Andy Bennett and Katy Helbacka. They have created high school age (or slightly older) characters named Mia and Logan who share an amazing adventure after Mia’s mother, a famous journalist, is killed and her father, a renowned cryptographer, disappears. Mia starts to get coded messages from him that readers can participate in solving. They are fun and illustrate a variety of coding types. The action really picks up when a powerful group takes off after Mia and Logan trying to locate a missing “treasure.” The setting is in DC and the city and its history (particularly early post-Civil War times) play a part in the story, too.  In addition to probing possible consequences of economic inequality, an underlying theme is whether the official story is always a true one. CODEBREAKER has already appeared on a number of recommended booklists and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. An excerpt is available on Macmillan website and discussion questions are available through Follett Titlewave.