City of the Dead (City Spies #4)

What I Liked: This latest book to the series has Kat as the Alpha of the team. Her character is brilliant and while no label is attached, she has neurodivergent tendencies that make life challenging for her when things get chaotic. Her meticulous planning gets the team far into their mission but when they meet roadblocks it throws her through a loop at first. I loved seeing her character grow as she learns to rely on her team and not to freeze when things go off script. One of the strengths of this series is that while the main story unfolds at a great pace and takes teamwork often in ocean eleven’s type of handoffs to meet the objective, there is a multilayered plot that focuses on the characters. The character of “Mother” is also a focus as he learns more about his lost wife, Clementine, who may not be the evil Umbra agent that cold-heartedly left him to die and hid his children for years. There is still much to discover about her motivations and allegiances in upcoming books.
I was surprised with a new addition to the team, code name, Cairo. Whether he is sent to the team to help or disrupt their missions is yet to be seen and the suspense makes it hard to put down and excited to read the next book in the series!
Final Verdict: This team of characters has lots of heart and great talent. I love the aspect of travel and the facts that are placed in the story that helps the reader to learn more about Egypt while also being important to accomplish their mission. This is a great middle-grade spy series that I am excited to see continue.

The fascinating, unexplored storyline in City Spies, Golden Gate, and Forbidden City that has most intrigued me was Mother's abandonment in a burning building by his wife and fellow spy, Clementine. He was rescued by the first City Spy, Paris, but Clementine has been on the run with their two children, and the suspicion is that she is working for Umbra, which is evil. We've heard snippets of the story, but are usually too caught up in the current mission to learn more. This time, Mother's past seems bound up with the current problem. The children are sent to "retrieve" items from the British Museum, which seems a bit odd. After some underground adventures and some explosives, they find out that there is more to this mission than they first believed. Kat, in particular, starts to see some patterns emerge in seemingly random outages of the subway system and other London locations. A coded scavenger hunt of sorts sends our intrepid young spies on a number of different sorties to find information, and they eventually end up in Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings! I find that I don't want to say too much about why they do there, or what they do, because everything unfolds in such a fun way, and I don't want to ruin the intricate unfolding of events!

The City Spies are chasing hackers who attack the British Museum and other English entities. Chasing the hackers leads them to Egypt in search of renegade antiquities.
What I liked:
Lots of great information about codes and returning cultural treasures to the countries from which they were stolen, and who owns the artifacts, who found them, the world, or the land they are from? I liked how, in each book, a particular character gets to show how they shine and why they have been selected for the team; this time, it is kat and her code-hacking abilities and how, amidst the chaos, she can see order. There are a lot of layers, and this book makes for one of the most complexes the team has faced.
Final Verdict:
On top of the central theme of these books is the added layer of the family, especially for "Mother," who has adopted the city spies but dearly misses his children, who his wife Clemmie has hidden from him. Before the end of this novel, though, a significant change will happen for the city spies' family, and a new dynamic will be on the horizon. How will this change the series for future books, and will "Mother" be able to reunite with his whole family? Again, this author does a fantastic job of placing a story that keeps you guessing as you read each page, writes characters that are great to root for, and keeps you guessing till the end how the whole mystery will play out.