Introduction

Written by Peng Shepherd, The Cartographers is an adult suspense thriller that combines elements of mystery, magical realism, and fantasy. The book follows Nell Young, a gifted cartographer exiled from her field, who finds in her father’s hidden possessions the map that ruined her career. She investigates the mystery of the map and its connection to her father’s murder, but realizes they are both much more significant than she imagined.

Shepherd has an MFA from New York University and received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (2020). A lover of maps, the author categorizes the book as a “dark academia fantasy” (Ellison, J. T. “The Cartographers - Peng Shepherd.” PBS, 2023). The novel was published on March 15, 2022, and has earned multiple accolades. It has been named a USA Today and National Independent Bookstores Bestseller, and a Good Morning America Pick of the Month. Additionally, Buzzfeed and Goodreads named the novel the Best Book of March and the Most Anticipated of March, respectively. The Cartographers is also scheduled to be translated into Arabic, French, Danish, and Czech.

This guide references the HarperCollins 1st edition of the novel published in 2022.

Plot Summary

Nell Young is the daughter of celebrated cartographers Daniel Young and the late Tamara “Tam” Jasper-Young. Nell once had a promising career path at the New York Public Library (NYPL) Map Division with her father but was disgraced after an event known as the “Junk Box Incident” (4). The incident occurred when Nell found a box labelled “Junk” that contained several valuable older maps and the 1930 General Drafting New York road map. Daniel declared the whole box worthless. Father and daughter argued until Daniel finally demanded the resignations of both Nell and her then-boyfriend, Felix. Nell now works at Classic, creating reproductions of maps for her boss, Humphrey.

Seven years after the Junk Box Incident, Daniel is murdered. At the crime scene, Nell finds her mother’s portfolio, which contains the same 1930 General Drafting New York road map from the Junk Box Incident. The next day, she learns of an attempted robbery at NYPL in which nothing was taken. Nell suspects that the perpetrator wants the Junk Box map. Later, Nell contacts her ex-boyfriend Felix, who now works for the tech conglomerate, Haberson Global, developing the digital Haberson Map for CEO William Haberson. (The search capabilities of the Haberson Map far exceed the resources of Google and all the other major tech companies combined, and William regards it as a “perfect map” of the world.) At Nell’s request, Felix uses the Haberson Map to research the Junk Box map and discovers that a mysterious group called the Cartographers is pursuing it. He and Nell also find a USB that contains the NYPL security footage of the break-in. In Tam’s old portfolio, they also find a business card for Ramona “Romi” Wu, a shady maps dealer. The next day, Nell visits Romi, who tells Nell that she, Daniel, and Tam were friends in their university days, along with others: Wally, Bear, Francis, and Eve. (Wally was once Tam’s best and only friend, and then the others joined the group one by one.) Romi also gives Nell an envelope that was originally intended for Daniel. Inside the envelope is a Sanborn Insurance map of the NYPL.

After Daniel’s funeral reception, Felix tells Nell that the USB footage shows an unidentifiable thief, but there is no indication of how he entered and left the NYPL. Nell discovers that Eve will be at the upcoming New York Antiquarian Book Fair. There, Eve reveals that Tam and her group of friends were the original Cartographers and that the compass rose is their sigil. The novel veers into a flashback to relate that the summer after their college graduation, the Cartographers stayed in upstate New York to work on a post-PhD project. Wally and Tam discovered the Junk Box map and its secrets while on this trip. The next summer, Tam died saving the baby Nell from a fire in mysterious circumstances. Eve reveals that Wally secretly loved Tam and never recovered from losing her. She tells Nell that he now uses the Cartographers’ name as an alias and that he is the murderer and thief who broke into the NYPL and killed Daniel and the guard.

Throughout the course of the novel, two maps are of central importance: the Junk Box map, which depicts the fictitious “phantom settlement” of Agloe in upstate New York, and the Sanborn map, which depicts a fictitious “trap room” within the NYPL. (Trap rooms and phantom settlements are fictitious details that cartographers added to real maps as a secret indicator of the map’s true authorship. Such additions served as copyright traps intended to expose any competitors who attempted to reproduce the maps for their own gain.) Within the world of the novel, it is possible to access these trap rooms and phantom settlements as real places, if only one has the right map.

When Felix and Nell examine the Junk Box map after talking to Eve, they find its phantom settlement: a tiny town called Agloe that is depicted as being located near the house where Nell’s mother, Tam, died. Nell wants to go there immediately, but a concerned Felix pushes her to turn the map in to Irene, the chair of the NYPL, in exchange for a dream career at the library. Nell agrees, and Felix kisses her.

The next evening, at the NYPL, Nell corners Francis, who tells her that Agloe is real; with the 1930 General Drafting New York road map (the Junk Box map), the Cartographers can make the fictitious town manifest in the real world. Swann, Nell’s former mentor at the NYPL, finds Nell and tells her that there was another murder and that Nell is the prime suspect. Suddenly, Wally appears and attacks Nell from behind, knocking her out. She awakens later in a safe place, having been rescued by Swann, Eve, Romi, and Francis: the remaining Cartographers. They are all now in the Sanborn trap room at the NYPL: the very room through which Wally infiltrated the library using a copy of the Sanborn Insurance map to make the trap room manifest. Eve and Francis tell Nell about the Cartographers’ discovery of Agloe years ago and the drama that unfolded when the group decided to map the phantom settlement. Wally, unhappy that Tam told the other Cartographers about Agloe, grew obsessed with keeping Agloe a secret. Francis, Romi’s boyfriend, cheated on her with Eve. Wally discovered Francis’s affair and forced Francis to help him “acquire” other copies of the 1930 map in order to prevent other people from accessing this secret place.

In the present, Nell and her group return to Classic, where Nell had hidden the map of Agloe. Her boss Humphrey, who is actually Bear from the Cartographers, gives Nell a fountain pen that originally belonged to her mother, Tam. He then adds his own flashback to round out the Cartographers’ early years, describing how Romi grew suspicious about Wally’s and Francis’s unusual activities in Agloe and confronted them. As the young Cartographers’ various dramas unfolded, Wally revealed Francis’s affair, and Bear asked Romi to help him steal one of Wally’s maps and so that he could sell the map back to Wally and use the money to pay off a massive debt. Romi and Bear did manage to steal one of Wally’s maps, but Wally discovered their plot and dragged both Bear and Tam, who was monitoring Wally, back to Agloe, where the other Cartographers were unable to stop Wally from setting his secret vault of 1930 maps on fire. Little Nell was caught in the blaze. Tam rescued her, sacrificing herself in the process. Agloe disappeared, taking Tam with it. Devastated, the Cartographers burned down their rental house in the real world to create a plausible explanation for Tam’s death, and then dispersed. Wally disappeared, and time passed. After the Junk Box Incident, Daniel asked Romi to hide the Junk Box map, but she refused, fearing retribution of some sort from Wally. She, Francis, and Eve found the Sanborn map instead, but although it gave them access to the NYPL trap room, they were too late to prevent Wally from infiltrating the NYPL and killing Daniel.

In the present, Felix goes to Haberson. William informs him that Nell is the primary suspect for the latest murder. Desperate to help Nell, Felix reveals the existence of the 1930 General Drafting New York road map. William leaves. Using the address of the house where Tam died, Felix approximates Agloe’s location and heads there with the Haberson Map machinery. When he arrives, he finds William. William reveals that he is actually Wally. By the time Nell and her group reach Agloe, Wally is already waiting for them, holding Felix hostage at gunpoint. Swann tries to stop Wally and Wally kills him. Wally, Nell, and Felix enter Agloe.

Nell now suspects that Tam is alive in Agloe. Wally correctly guesses that there is another map of Agloe—Tam’s—and destroys the Junk Box map. Tam appears. Wally forces Nell to scan Tam’s map into the digital Haberson Map. Felix sets a fire as a distraction. Buying time for Felix, Tam, and Wally to escape, Nell stays behind and uses her mother’s pen to change the details of the Agloe map to block Wally’s future access to Agloe, sacrificing herself to end Wally’s obsession. After Agloe’s disappearance, Wally is a broken man, for he simultaneously lost both Agloe and the Haberson Map in the fire. Time passes; life returns to normal although Nell does not return. Wally is on trial for his crimes. One day, Felix receives an invitation with a compass rose on it. Inside is a map, indicating both Agloe’s new location and implying that Nell is still alive.