This was a fantastic conclusion to the Arlo Finch series! I reviewed the first book back in 2018, Book with Scouts and Magic, and I thought it was just a fantastic premise I'd not seen done in middle grade before and it was brilliantly executed. A year later I featured the sequel, Magical, Time Traveling Scouts as a Holiday Pick, and now I'm featuring the final book as a Summer Reading pick.
It's as hot as the cover implies.
Arlo goes on a hike, but as you know, nothing's normal about hiking through the Long Woods. In fact, Arlo's hoping to cross half the globe in one afternoon to bring his father home from Guangzhou, China. That's right, because the Long Woods have portals everywhere there's a forest or a large stand of trees, potentially.
But first, he takes his friends and fellow Patrol members, Indra and Wu, with him to meet up with Fox, who leads them to Fallpath, the City of Lost Things, so they can consult the Atlas for the location of the opening in Guangzhou.
Of course, the atlas is not what Arlo's expecting (I won't ruin what it is, or how they get to consult it), but still, it does get Arlo and his sister, Jaycee, to Guangzhou and they manage to smuggle their father out of China and back home -- without a passport, long plane ride, going through Customs, etc.
That's, of course, when the story really picks up. Because his father's a wanted fugitive, and it's an impossible-to-explain journey, and the Eldrich -- who want Arlo's spirit knife, which he's still got -- have eyes everywhere. Even within the FBI, apparently.
They want his dad for his computer hacking / programming skilz, and an agent pulls Arlo out of school to question him about whether he's seen his dad. But then he add, Arlo may be in danger -- from the homicidal sociopath, Hadryn. Who may be back, and out to get him.
I won't ruin the twists and turns from here. It's a fun read, one I didn't want to come to an end.
I predict it'll be a long time before another author can write a middle grade fantasy featuring scouting as well as John August did!
Enjoy.
