When an eccentric billionaire dies dramatically at a charity event, Tuesday Mooney keeps her cool. But when that billionaire announces posthumously that part of his fortune will go to the winner of a Boston-wide scavenger hunt, she gets a little excited. As a prospect researcher, she understands the world of the super-wealthy, and she knows how to do the legwork on complicated puzzles. And as a confident loner, she’s willing to take the strange chances and risks that the scavenger hunt requires of its participants. She soon finds herself ranging all across (and under!) the city, making new friends and unexpected enemies in her search for money and, more importantly, the thrill of success.
Tuesday is a badass heroine not because of what she does or the outward trappings of her life, but because of her inner resolve. Tuesday is Tuesday and no one else, nor would she want to be. Racculia does something subtly brilliant in creating a character who isn’t motivated by conventional expectations or standards. It’s not that she’s self-sufficient—although she is that—so much as it is that she’s sufficient unto herself. She’s not looking for other things to fill her up and she’s not confused about what she wants. Plenty of people are self-sufficient: they pay their bills, work at their jobs, and manage their social lives just fine. But fiction often gets its conflict from their dissatisfaction and confusion. They want romance but are settling for sex; they want parental approval but are trying to get it from their bosses; on and on. Most people are unfulfilled by their modern lives; Tuesday is aggressively content.
This isn’t to say that she’s a closed system. She has needs, desires, and an abundance of curiosity. She’s drawn into Vincent Pryce’s scavenger hunt because she loves puzzles, and she sticks with it because she comes to discover how much she loves her friends and how much she loves Pryce’s underlying message.
The mad billionaire also knew exactly who he was and what he wanted, unconventional as it often was. And he wants the people playing his game to understand his carpe diem attitude and his boundless love for art, civic duty, and the city of Boston.
This is a very specific picture of Boston that maybe doesn’t capture the entirety of the city, but does capture a very specific experience of being a non-student living in the more metropolitan areas (such as they are). It’s interesting that Racculia chose to include people of almost every age except college students, who make up such a vast portion of Boston’s population that each college has to coordinate move-in and graduation days, lest the overlap overwhelm the grid. Boston, I suspect she’s trying to say, is more than its students and colleges. It’s all the neighborhoods, squares, and streets that make the convoluted little city so beloved by the people who choose to live here rather than just end up at college here.
Tuesday is and has been surrounded by these people much of her adult life, but it’s Pryce’s game that gets her to finally appreciate them. There’s her de facto BFF Poindexter Howard, aka Dex, who worries that he’s becoming his corporate façade instead of acting on the Broadway dreams he’s always cherished. There’s also Dorry, the precocious preteen who’s trying to navigate grief and her new Boston home, and Archie, the surprisingly down-to-earth billionaire heir. It’s quite the cast that Tuesday draws around herself, and it only becomes wilder as dastardly schemers, wealthy widows, and all manner of weirdoes come out of the woodwork to compete for Pryce’s prize.
This is not The DaVinci Code levels of puzzle-hunting. There’s not an elaborate scaffolding of clues and secret societies counting on your obscure knowledge to unlock the final revelation about how Edgar Allan Poe was married to Jesus (or whatever). It’s more like Indiana Jones: you’re along for a ride with swashbuckling and a bit of research, and instead of a grail knight or the Ark you’ve got a ghost.
Maybe.
The supernatural element is very, very small, a marble cosseted in a packing crate of modern psych and misdirection. Pryce might be haunting his own game; Tuesday might be haunted by a friend she lost long ago. Are there really supernatural happenings? Or is this all just a ruse and a trauma reaction?
The uncertainty there is a symptom of a larger uncertainty that eddies around the book, which gets a bit muddled at times. Is this meant to be a psychological novel about Tuesday? Is it about the scavenger hunt, or the multiple murder mysteries? Is it about Poe, or Boston, or a big theme like Friendship? Is it about being haunted? Is it about money, and what you do with it? I know it wants to be all of these things and more, but it might have benefited from a sharper focus, and more time with Tuesday. Not to say that the other characters aren’t great, but that Tuesday needed a bit more time to feel truly like an icon.
And I think Tuesday really has the potential to be that. A tall, confident woman who used to be a goth but now dresses all in black for the sheer convenience of it, a social researcher who’s an outsider by choice, and a serious, analytical mind that’s also obsessed with 90’s pop culture, she’s a great—and fun—person to follow into any mystery. Raacculia has said that she may return to writing Tuesday, and I hope she does. A slightly (only slightly!) less frenetic book would really allow the characters and the setting to breathe a little more, and for everyone to embrace how awesome Tuesday Mooney really is.
Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers. In the UK, it will be published as Tuesday Mooney Wore Black on February 6th.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
A dying billionaire sends one woman and a cast of dreamers and rivals on a citywide treasure hunt in this irresistible novel by the author of Bellweather Rhapsody.
Tuesday Mooney is a loner. She keeps to herself, begrudgingly socializes, and spends much of her time watching old Twin Peaks and X-Files DVDs. But when Vincent Pryce, Boston’s most eccentric billionaire, dies—leaving behind an epic treasure hunt through the city, with clues inspired by his hero, Edgar Allan Poe—Tuesday’s adventure finally begins.
Puzzle-loving Tuesday searches for clue after clue, joined by a ragtag crew: a wisecracking friend, an adoring teen neighbor, and a handsome, cagey young heir. The hunt tests their mettle, and with other teams from around the city also vying for the promised prize—a share of Pryce’s immense wealth—they must move quickly. Pryce’s clues can’t be cracked with sharp wit alone; the searchers must summon the courage to face painful ghosts from their pasts (some more vivid than others) and discover their most guarded desires and dreams.
A deliciously funny ode to imagination, overflowing with love letters to art, from The Westing Game to Madonna to the Knights of the Round Table, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is the perfect read for thrill seekers, wanderers, word lovers, and anyone looking for an escape to the extraordinary.
