'The joy of The Chessmaster's Secret is that it really does have something for everyone [...] The style is direct, pacy and immediately engaging. The vocabulary is stretching but not out of reach. Middle graders who enjoy a good adventure will love it, but every young reader will find something to relate to in this fun and exciting story.’ – The Bookbag  
In London in 1944, war orphans, Belle and Joe, discover a link between their Uncle’s ‘Shop of Mechanical Marvels’ and The Turkish Chessmaster, a chess-playing automaton, which leads them into a time-travelling adventure with ‘The Turk’s’ inventor Baron Von Kempelen. 
Helping the Baron they find themselves in a risky confrontation with the Russian Army; a narrow escape at the court of Maria Theresa and a game of chess with Napoleon. 
Despite their adventures, Belle and Joe long for a permanent home. Determined to solve the mystery of ‘The Turk’, they are inevitably led to the Museum in Philadelphia in 1844, where the Chessmaster has been revealed as merely a conjuring trick. Or has it?