Title: The Language of the Birds  
Author: K.A. Merson         
Genre: Mystery/thriller  
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Seventeen-year-old Arizona’s favorite things include cryptography, geocaching, the writings of Jules Verne—and exploring the Sierra Nevadas on her Russian Ural motorcycle, with her dog Mojo riding shotgun in his sidecar.

She’s not, in other words, your average teenager.

So when she learns her mother’s been kidnapped and finds a cryptic test accompanying the ransom note, she’s not just horrified—but electrified. Solving puzzles and cracking codes are what she does best, and she knows exactly how to tackle the challenge the kidnappers are dangling in front of her.

What she doesn’t yet realize is that she’s been enlisted in a treasure hunt, on the trail of an occult, centuries-old secret her father supposedly took to his grave. And if the prize at the end is real, it could shake the world.

As Arizona chases the truth through fiendish puzzles and ancient texts, unearthing clues both buried underground and hiding in plain sight in the Western landscape, she’s forced to navigate the outside world in ways she never has before―and begins to forge connections she never dreamed she could.

 The vast majority of the puzzles and ciphers in this novel were way over my head—and probably over most other readers’ heads, too. Getting bogged down in the details of those puzzles really detracted from my enjoyment of this read. I liked Arizona and it was good to see her actually growing and learning from her experiences, but her insistence that the world change for her without her putting out any effort to adapt at first irritated me. This was a decent read, but the minutiae of the puzzles made it difficult to truly enjoy.

K.A. Merson lives in the Sierra Nevadas. The Language of Birds is his new novel.

(Galley courtesy of Random House/Ballantine in exchange for an honest review.)