With a series of breakneck twists and turns, Jinks's (the Pagan Chronicles) latest novel follows Cadel Piggott, a seven-year-old Australian boy with an incredible mind and a proclivity toward mischief: "He loved systems: phone systems, electrical systems, car engines, complicated traffic intersections." Following a string of disasters, which Cadel engineers (e.g., hacking into the city's power grid), his desperate adoptive parents take him to a psychologist, Dr. Thaddeus Roth. But instead of refocusing Cadel on more positive activities, Dr. Roth encourages the boy to develop increasingly destructive plans, such as orchestrating massive traffic jams and manipulating his classmates' emotions so that they turn on one another. Dr. Roth also stuns Cadel by revealing that he is employed by Cadel's birth father, Dr. Phineas Darkkon, a criminal mastermind serving a life sentence. From prison, Dr. Darkkon established the Axis Institute for the world's genetically talented and criminally inclined. Drs. Roth and Darkkon convince Cadel to join its small freshman class, and Cadel slowly uncovers a conspiracy of lies and betrayals that leave no aspect of his life untouched. Jinks has created an intricate, well-constructed and layered reality in this hefty novel, and as the complex deceptions that have shaped Cadel's life come to light, his emotional unraveling and awakening will likely engross readers. Ages 12-up. (May)

Gr 7-10 –Catherine Jink's complex and lengthy novel (Harcourt, 2007) about Cadel Piggott, a young prodigy working toward his degree in World Domination at the Axis Institute, is fully voiced by Justine Eyer in this overly ambitious production. Set in Australia, with characters from New Jersey, England, and Germany and an American narrator, the varying accents stretch listeners and readers beyond their comfort zones, although the reading does become more fluid as the book progresses. The choice of a female narrator for this title, which includes mostly male characters, is odd. Several of the evil men sound more like agitated, annoying playground bullies. The drawn-out story line covers seven years and involves nearly the entire staff of Axis as they undermine and plot against each other, while Cadel works against them. The cast of characters becomes muddled in the listening, and is easier to keep up with in the print version where readers can flip back to check previous passages. Listeners looking for a tale of young prodigies at school or crime and espionage novels would do better with Stewart Trenton's The Mysterious Benedict Society (Listening Library, 2007) and Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series.–Kelly Vikstrom, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, MD

Gr 7 Up— Cadel Piggott was hacking into computer systems by the time he was seven and causing all sorts of trouble by the time he fast-tracked through high school. At age 14, he is encouraged by his longtime "psychiatrist" to enroll in the Axis Institute. There, the classes include Misinformation, Disguise, Basic Lying, Embezzlement, and Explosives. Cadel settles into his first semester of studies, but soon begins to suspect that something is very wrong here. Through Partner Post, his online matching service experiment, he receives a cryptic warning from one of his subscribers, and he begins to make plans to investigate his teachers. A trail of hacked information takes him to places he doesn't want to go. A flowing and coherent style leads readers into the thriller that Evil Genius becomes. Although background information dominates the beginning of the book, the plot quickly picks up its dark and dangerous pace as Cadel moves through his fear and realization of what is happening around him. As an alternative thriller that shows the good side of evil, Jinks sets up a compelling world of lies, deceit, and betrayal that will have lovers of mystery or computer-based investigation on the edge as they devour this page-turner. A sequel is planned.—Dylan Thomarie, Johnstown High School, NY