The Corus Wave

British cartoonist Sparks’s twisty debut makes up for shaky art with an offbeat puzzle plot that blends science, history, and English folklore. Lorelei, a geology student, travels to the eccentric village of Chorksbury to work on her thesis on “palindenites,” a rare and little-studied star-shaped fossil. With her roommate, Eddie, and their cat, Raisin, in tow, she learns that 19th-century polymath Havius Corus, the last prominent palindenite researcher, believed that the fossils contained the secrets of the universe and left clues to his work hidden around town. “God, I hope it’s not like The Da Vinci Code,” Lorelei groans, but she and Eddie soon throw themselves into the game, exploring village landmarks to uncover cryptic carvings and mosaics, a secret tunnel revealed Indiana Jones–style, a circle of standing stones, and more. They’re pursued by Dr. Lowena Marley, an architecture expert who threatens to beat them to a breakthrough. The simplistic black-and-white art, with snarky dialogue in an intrusive typed font, has quirky immediacy but falls short of capturing the wonders of Chorksbury. Still, readers who enjoy scientific mysteries will gladly overlook the rough edges of this unpolished gem. (Oct.)