At the start of Murder in Mennefer, our young hero is set to begin a journey south down a river with a friend. That sounds like a classic American tale, calling to mind Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But the journey does not happen, and this story is not an American one. Rather, Mennefer is what we know as Memphis in ancient Egypt, circa 27th century BCE, not the modern-day city in Tennessee. This is an Egypt so ancient that the pyramids have not yet been built. (Oddly enough, Huck and Jim’s original destination was Cairo, Illinois.)

The title Murder in Mennefer may call to mind an Agatha Christie mystery, and though there is a Hercule Poirot-like figure in the book, this is not a mystery in the sense of Death on the Nile.  Murder in Mennefer is more of a coming-of-age adventure. There’s even a love interest, the baker’s daughter. Sirois deftly balances these various strands. He is having some fun in this novel aimed at young adults, and he’s inviting us along. I’m on board, and you should be, too, whatever your age. It’s a terrific ride.

This insightful, darkly humorous novella starts in an unexpected place for a coming-of-age story: with a murder. But as the story unfolds, the crime itself recedes into the background as we learn how the events–and people–surrounding the murder come to affect both the protagonist, 13-year-old Zinnia Zompa, and her mother. The result is a haunting examination of how others’ choices and behaviors can affect us, perhaps indelibly.

In the acknowledgments section of this beautifully crafted, revelatory collection, Tara Lynn Masih mentions her realization, while putting the book together, that many of the stories are connected by the theme of disappearance. Indeed, the collection explores literal and metaphorical disappearances, and how these lead characters to transformative discoveries about themselves and, in some cases, about the spiritual world.

This haunting young-adult novel weaves together two mysteries: an engrossing whodunnit and also the enigma posed by the young woman who could play a role in solving it: Maggie Warshauer, a budding scientist and keen observer of the natural world.

Maggie lives on a cramped and run-down houseboat with her father, Drew, who manages the marina where the boat is docked. Although Drew clearly loves Maggie, his struggles with alcoholism leave him unable to be fully present for her. So does his inability to let go of his relationship with his ex-wife (“my so-called mother,” in Maggie’s words). He writes to her regularly, begging her to come back to him and Maggie. But without fail, the ex returns the letters to him, apparently unread. Drew’s limitations as a parent push Maggie into the role of caring for herself, and often, for him as well.

Described as “prose snapshots,” each of the stories in this evocative, wide-ranging collection captures significant or telling moments, encounters, or observations in 50 words or fewer. Together, they add up to something far greater than the sum of their parts, creating a rich, layered portrait of the human experience.

In this imaginative collection of linked stories, “the borderlands” seem to refer not only to the territory along the U.S.-Mexico border–a landscape traversed by the central character, Jillian Guzmán, and her family–but also to metaphysical boundaries that are magically porous to Jillian: between life and death and between the material and spiritual worlds. Collectively, her experiences in these dimensions create a portrait of deep empathy, and of the powers of hope and redemption, even amid suffering.