Review Detail

City of the Dead (City Spies #4)

Middle Grade Fiction 1705

We're off on the Road to the Valley of the Kings

December 27, 2022

Overall rating

4.7

Plot

4.0

Characters

5.0

Writing Style

5.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

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!

Good Points

Even though there is a rather large cast, I am able to keep the characters separated in my mind, which speaks to the quality of the character development. We learn a lot more about Kat and her abilities in this volume. The biggest draw for me is always the travel, and I recommend these to students who want vicarious adventures when stuck in study hall! Including information about the King Tut exhibit is fantastic, sixth our sixth graders study ancient Egypt, and makes this a great companion to Fleming's The Curse of the Mummy! The issue of countries having appropriated cultural artifacts in the past and thinking now about returning them is addressed in a thoughtful way. Of course, I was enthralled to find out more about Clementine and see a surprisingly character emerge and be added to the City Spies! This really made me think about Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax novels, which I adored!

Like many traveling spy books, there are some coincidences and helpful people that seem a bit unlikely. But then, we are dealing with tween spies who are traveling around the world, so an undercover taxi driver shouldn't really bother me!

Readers who like City Spies should also be pointed in the direction of Stuart Gibbs' mysteries, Ponti's owned Framed Trilogy, Horowitz's Alex Rider books and Macx's new Swift and Hawk CyberSpies.