WARNING: This review contains spoilers

Before beginning this review, let me give a quick refresher as to who the young spies are. Along with their real names, cover identities, age, birthplace, skill set, likes, and their favorite places. Each person is named by the place they’re from.

First, we have Mother and Monty, who both take care of and watch over the young spies. They are also the ones who head the investigations in the first place.

Brooklyn’s real name is Sara Maria Martinez. Her cover identity is Christina Diaz. She is 12 years old. She was born in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico. She is a computer virtuoso. She was secretly tasked with hacking into the personal computers of several members of MI6 staff when a software glitch altered their passwords. As payment, ten pizzas were specially delivered from her favorite New York pizzeria. She likes the combo of art and technology and started studying graphic design for fun. Since moving to the UK, she has become addicted to watching Bollywood movies on late-night telly. She usually watches with Kat while munching on a massive bowl of masala popcorn. They dance along with the characters when they think no one else is watching.

Paris’s real name is Salomon Omborenga. His cover identity is Lucas Doinel. He is 15 years old. He was born in Kigali, Rwanda. He has a lucky cricket bat named Charlie that he’s used to fund off a masked intruder, break into an Indonesian railway station, and help pull Sydney to safety after she’d fallen through ice on a frozen pond. Oddly, he’s never used it to play cricket, which he considers mind-numbingly dull. He does not like spiders. They terrify him. He once extracted a key hidden in a tank filled with snaked without breaking a sweat onty to return to the hotel, where he saw a harmless house spider and almost fainted. He loves watching Liverpool FC on the widescreen with a full array of snacks. He wears the same red socks for every game and only washes them once the season’s over.

Sydney’s real name is Olivia Rose. Her cover identity is Eleanor King. She is 14 years old. She was born in Bondi Beach, New South Wales, Australia. She is quite the escape artist. During a rescue op, she eluded the Albanian secret police by hiding in an active sewage pipe. While on holiday, she outran (technically out-skateboarded) six members of the Queen’s guards after performing several tricks including an “ollie”, a “backside 180”, and a “kickflip” in a restricted area of Buckingham Palace. She loves rule-breaking. Her happy place is the ocean. She regularly surfs in the frigid waters of the North Sea on a stretch of beach the others have christened “Sydney Surf”.

Kat’s real name is Amita Bishwakarma. Her cover identity is Supriya Rai. She is 13 years old. She was born in Monjo, Nepal. She sees patterns where others see randomness. This helped her identify an undercover spy posing as a mail carrier because he pushed his trolley differently than his coworkers. She has a sneaky good sense of humor and writes jokes that she regularly posts in an online community for mathematicians. Examples: “Why shouldn’t you take advice from pi? It’s irrational.” “Why did 4, 12, and 34 go overtime? Because they were all even”. Her life goals include constructing a crossword puzzle that gets printed in the Times, studying at Trinity College like Isaac Newton, and attending Comic-Con in San Diego dressed as Chewbacca (despite her petite size).

Rio’s real name is João Cardozo. His cover identity is Rafael Rocha. He is 12 years old. He was born in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is an accomplished magician; he’s used sleight of hand and deception countless times during operations. He also puts on a magic show every December for patients at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital. He has a lovely singing voice and is a soloist in the Kinloch Abbey boy’s choir. He’s obsessed with eating and keeps a journal in which he rates food on a scale from one to one hundred according to a secret formula that he will not share. Kat and Brooklyn are competing to see who can crack the code first.

While the first book was mostly focused on Brooklyn, this second book was mostly told from Sydney’s point of view, focusing on her.

Sydney and Brooklyn have been sent on an undercover mission on a marine research vessel, but things go a bit south. Not only that, but they also find out about the death of an agent in San Francisco who was looking into Magpie, who is a double agent in the agency. We can also see the conflicts that Brooklyn and Sydney have. It is very sibling-dynamic conflicts which is nice to see considering the fact that these girls are not blood-siblings.

Throughout the book, we get mentions of Mother’s children and wife, also showing the complicated situation that is present between him wanting to be there for his current family, who are the young spies, and wanting to find his biological children.

We also learn how Kat joined the team, and we get to see a glimpse of her life before the spies. It was nice seeing this little backstory of her, as Kat is one of the most mysterious characters as she tends to keep to herself and is usually quiet and reserved.

Throughout the book, we get to see glimpses of Mother’s biological children, as well as the times he gets close to finding them and their mother.

This book was a really fun read, because we got to see the friendships between the spies grow stronger, especially between Brooklyn and Sydney, who learn to overcome their issues, learn, and communicate. It was a short yet action-packed reading experience.

There were many different plotlines that were touched upon in this book, and some that I hope get to be touched upon in the following books, and some that were clarified from the first book.

Of course, this book ended with such a heart-warming scene with Mother deciding that he wanted to adopt all the spies, and asking them if they would allow them to be their father. And of course, the spies are more than happy to have Mother as a father.

Age Range

I personally recommend this book for 4th graders and up. Slight mentions of murder, slight violence.