As usual, Stuart Gibbs is so good, we buy his books and they get devoured, and then I never get around to writing reviews for them, because there's no deadline -- no return date to the library!
But this one is, like all of Gibbs' books, worth the price and then some. It feels like a conclusion to the Spy School series, which I think it may be.
Ben Ripley and the other spies-in-training at the Academy of Espionage have to see the super-secret (more like rogue) mission they started in Mexico through to the end.
They're sitting pretty, with the SPYDER duo evil geniuses Joshua Hallal and Murray Hill in custody, and they've got the mysterious key stamped 1206 in their possession. It may possibly be the key to bringing down SPYDER. If only they knew what it was a key to, and if only SPYDER hadn't mounted a successful rescue mission for Joshua and his heavy, Dane Brammage. SPYDER leaves Murray behind, as usual.
Erica's mom identifies the key as belonging to a vault in The British Museum, and the teens are off to Catherine's MI6 territory -- England.
They get locked in the Museum when the evil Jenny Lake (and formerly Murray's girlfriend at SPYDER) shows up with a cadre of evil agents, guns blazing and wantonly destroying priceless artifacts. As they escape, with Joshua Hallal's flash drive, MI6 is hot on their trail. The Queen disavows them and they seek refuge in guess which national landmark? None other than the Tower Bridge of London.
They can't just open the flash drive, however. MI6 tracks them down and they're on the run while trying to get to the mysterious coder, Orion, who wrote the original code to protect the flashdrive. By this point, Ben's super upset that he hasn't contributed to the mission practically at all, Zoe appears to be developing a crush on Mike, Erica covers for Ben but well, Erica's always all professional and not into personal relationships and ...
They get the flashdrive decoded and each of them gets to see a bit of the data on the screen (Ben sees something about Mr. E., UnicornsRule! and an "Operation Wipeout," when Joshua shows up yet again, again armed to the teeth and accompanied by Dane and other agent heavies out for the flashdrive and blood. Jenny also shows up, and now Ben and the others start to think she might be working for a rival evil spy organization to SPYDER.
That takes you only about half-way through the book. I won't spoil the last 1/2 or how it ends, just know, nothing is quite as it seems, as usual in this series in particular.
A fantastic, fun read!
