The Backward Trail at Puzzle Creek

About this book

In Puzzle Creek, a sleepy Midwest town famous for its annual Community Puzzle Parade, four friends share an unbreakable bond forged over riddles, codes, and summer afternoons. Jordan Hale, a freckled twelve-year-old with perpetually ink-smudged fingers, sketches impossible mazes and quietly maps out the group's plans. Aisha Patel, an energetic eleven-year-old with springy black curls and scuffed running shoes, spots patterns in motion that nobody else sees. Theo Kim, a thoughtful twelve-year-old behind round glasses, collects bottle caps and notices the tiniest overlooked details. Riley Quinn, a lanky thirteen-year-old whose backpack jingles with homemade gadgets and code wheels, cracks ciphers with cheerful determination. Days before the town's sesquicentennial parade—the celebration that funds the local library—the grand prize vanishes piece by piece: a handcrafted wooden puzzle box that guards the town's founding map. Worse, the evidence begins pointing at one of their own, and a misread riddle drives a wedge straight through the heart of the team. Told in reverse chronology, the novel opens amid confetti and unfinished floats as the friends publicly name the culprit, then rewinds day by day through chalk arrows, garden gnomes arranged into signals, misdelivered newspapers with tampered crosswords, and puzzle pieces swapped into bakery windows and birdhouse kits—until it arrives at the small, innocent discovery that started everything. A cozy mystery about friendship, trust, and the courage to be heard, inviting readers to turn back to page one and read it all forward.

Book details

Genres:

Cozy Mystery, Middle Grade Fiction, Contemporary Fiction

Language:

en

Published:

2026-07-20

Content rating:

PG-13