Book 33

"Evil Genius" by Catherine Jinks

Young people today are spoiled. They have Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl (about whom more later) and Lemony Snickett (about whom, more next). There is a large volume of quality children's and young adult fiction out there. "Evil Genius" slots neatly into the later category, with some inpleasant implied concepts, but nothing too full on or psychologically scarring.

The story is that of Cadel Piggott. He is a genius child with prodigious computer hacking skills. When he is 11 he finds out his father is a technological genius and master criminal who has set up a college to teach future criminal masterminds in Sydney (principally for the benefit of his son). What follows is a suprisingly adutl exploration of good and evil as Cadel learns a few truths about what being a criminal mastermind is all about.

I really enjoyed this one, and found myself feeling more uncomfortable about some of the implied concepts behind it that I did while reading "Haunted", which flat out describes things like self-mutilation and murder. The characters were engaging and the story was well-plotted and fair zipped along. This is certainly one for the 12+ age group, but definitely one they should look at.

Four quasi-supervillains out of five.