POP COes the Weasel

Popco is an evil toy company. Alice Butler designs products for them. Alice's grandfather is the only person ever to have deciphered the Stevenson-Heath transcripts, an ancient coded treasure map whose coded key Alice carries around on a necklace her grandfather gave to her when she was 11. At a Popco employee retreat in the British countryside several years after her grandparents' death, Alice begins receiving mysterious coded messages slipped anonymously into her room. Could they be innocuous messages from a coworker, familiar with Alice's code-breaking prowess? Could they be from greedy treasure-seekers who have discovered the existence of Alice's necklace? Sounds intriguing, right?

This book is much fun to read for maybe the first 370 pages or so. We learn about codes, I get nostalgic about my freshman year cryptology class, intriguing characters of the Popco regime reveal the company's immoral methods of success, etc. The story builds and builds, even generating excitement. AND THEN! It falls flat on its face. Goodbye remaining 130 pages.

This book had so much promise. But the ending is about as boring as conceivably possible for a book about secret coded messages and treasure hunts and toy companies and how they all intersect through one person. Unless, of course, the last 130 pages are a code for the reader to crack that reveals a much more exciting and satisfying result.