Only the Good Spy Young, by Ally Carter
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
I’ve been reading the Gallagher Girls spy stories (otherwise known as the books with the awesomest titles in the whole world) for a couple of years now, and while I did fall harder for Carter’s new Heist Society series, I have always enjoyed them.
With this fourth book in the series, though, I think Carter has quite noticeably lifted her game. The earlier books were fun, frothy adventures about a spy school for girls, and while there were hints of darkness and seriousness they were often well couched in all the action, humour and friends forever sort of thing. In this volume, the stakes are drastically raised, and everything starts feeling quite a bit more tense and epic.
Relationships which Cammie has formed in previous books are suddenly tested to their limits. A teacher she has grown to trust is revealed as a double agent, and she has a horrible suspicion that the boy she likes might also be working for the mysterious group known as “the Circle.” She and her friends must brave the dangerous security protocols inside her school to find a hidden object of inestimable value: the diary of her dead father.
I found myself loving this book. I adore the tight four-girl team of Cammie and her friends, and it’s nice to see them working against the odds again here. I also like how the older generation is handled and that we are learning more and more about them and their story in new layers with every book. It has shades of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin in Prisoner of Azkaban (the book, that is - the movie completely ruined story of the the older generation) and I particularly like the connection that Cammie feels to the sixteen-year-old version of her father and his best friend, through the diary.
There’s also the usual code-cracking, explosion-dodging, rule-breaking antics, and we get some great scenes with Cammie and her mother. I also really liked the character of Townsend, a cranky agent who has been obviously brought into teach in order to find out what the girls know about the double agent, and thus refuses to actually teach them.
The ending of the book is a bit of a kick in the teeth, and shows that whatever is to come next for Cammie the Gallagher Girls, any hint of formula from the earlier books has been well and truly smashed to bits. From here on, the story is going to be going down a far less predictable path, away from the school and its cozy environs (well not that cozy, not with all the explosives, swords and secret tunnels, but… yeah, it’s pretty cozy).
Now I have to wait for the NEXT one.
*twiddles thumbs*