Codename Quicksilver 1: In the Zone by Allan Jones

Codename Quicksilver 1: In the Zone by Allan Jones
Buy Codename Quicksilver 1: In the Zone by Allan Jones at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: The series launcher starts the ball rolling very pacily, but it can still lose sight of its espionage plot and gather the moss of being merely an introduction.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 208	Date: July 2012
Publisher: Orion Books
ISBN: 9781444005455
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Zak's day is full of surprises. First his mate bumps into him when he's setting an arcade record at his favourite game, then he sees said mate plummet to his death in front of him. Then he adopts the friend's killers, who want to get their hands on him. Then he gets rescued - by a girl, who is a member of a secret agency - what on earth is happening?!

This book launches a series of six with a brisk brio - large print, snappy dialogue, short paragraphs and child-friendly mannerisms all over. It clearly has to create Codename Quicksilver, for that is the name of the series, and as such is definitely on a very set path - it also makes a lot of the last thirty pages redundant. But before then we have the pages filled most suitably with action - chase scenes, crosses and double crosses, baddies being good and goodies being bad.

Perhaps, given that this has to be a sort of pilot episode, where Zak and his future companions have to be introduced for us, I was wrong to expect a little bit more. The idea is definitely to create a new Alex Rider, courtesy of a junior espionage agent doing things adults can't do, a la Robert Muchamore's Cherub crew. But I do think that this plays second fiddle to both those series, and comes second not just in order of publication. Thrusting us - and Zak - in at the deep end, Jones suggests a free-running parkour expertise for his new hero, but this gets abandoned. Still, how much unique flavour do you expect in a spy series for the under-twelves, with a 14-year old lead?

And adult curmudgeonliness aside there is definitely enough kinetic activity for the young reader, a happy balance between realism and genre action, allowing for things to escalate over the next five books, and enough promise in the crisp, energetic writing to make you open to further volumes. This, then, is like a standard TV pilot - never a sniff of an Oscar, but nothing to reduce you to turning off right away. I'm certainly amenable to more of the series.

I must thank the kind publishers for my review copy.

More old-fashioned intrigue can be had with the series starting with The One That Got Away (Misfitz Mysteries) by Josh Lacey.

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