Since his mother was hit by a bus and killed a year ago, Nathan has been living with his father, Henry, who hasn’t recovered from the death of Nathan’s mom: Although divorced, the two were close. Nathan and his dad are living in an apartment building slated for destruction, and life seems gray and unremarkable. Then Nathan spots the Beefeater—a guard from the Tower of London—walking the hallway outside his physics review class. The man speaks in riddles, but he knows Nathan’s name. Shortly after, Henry disappears from their thirteenth-floor apartment bathroom, leaving a dad-sized hole in the exterior wall. There’s no trace of him on the ground, and as Nathan struggles to make sense of what has happened the Beefeater appears again. Thrown into a time loop, Nathan finds himself reliving the day of his dad’s disappearance over and over, and with the help of the Beefeater begins piecing together a puzzle that centers on his mother’s accident and his father’s unwillingness to let her go. Jason Cockcroft’s debut novel is a clever combination of time travel and mystery. (Ages 10–13)