Codename Quicksilver 2: The Tyrant King by Allan Jones
| Codename Quicksilver 2: The Tyrant King by Allan Jones | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: The first major episode in this series has the same propulsion as the opener, but doesn't yet have a must-read plot for its young spy-fan audience. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 224 | Date: July 2012 |
| Publisher: Orion Books | |
| ISBN: 9781444005462 | |
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Normal life for Zak was lots of running, lots of computer games, and idling his time away in London, either talking to his old homeless friend, or living at the care home. But how normal life has changed. Now he's a secret agent to do what Britain's adult spies can't, his friend has been replaced by the Crown Prince of a Monaco-type country, and his job is now bodyguard to royalty in ancient Mediterranean castles, and five star London hotels. But if he is as bad a bodyguard as first appears, you can guess that he'll still be doing a lot of running...
Movement is at the forefront of this series, and this, book two, moves no more slowly than book one, or indeed Zak himself. We start again in the thick of it, and training is not even over before Zak - Quicksilver - is on the job, throwing bombs out of windows, surviving high-speed car crashes. The large-print, easy-to-read action is once more a restless read for the reluctant under-twelve book consumer.
It's a bit of a relief to see the real missions for Zak provide books such as this, as the first felt a bit too much like an introduction. But my quibbles are very much the same - with such precedents in the genre Zak's bollard-hopping free-running could have been made more of, and however warmly received the high-octane drama can be, nothing is distinguished in any major way. The baddy and the mode of attack stand out a country mile, too.
Still, while I can't urge you to buy this, the urgency on the page is still commendable. Top-end mobile phones and computer games, dinosaurs, mega-yachts and rally cars all mean this is pure wish-fulfillment for boys. I think these books do just enough for you if your wish is for happily occupied young men.
I must thank the publishers again for my review copy.
Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider) by Anthony Horowitz shows how this thing should be done more proficiently.
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