Cyber-espionage takes both front seats in this conclusion to the outstanding Genius series. Though raised to be a criminal mastermind, 15-year-old Cadel rejects the role, desiring only a normal life with his new adoptive parents. No chance: Suddenly his fugitive mentor/nemesis Prosper English is showing up on nearby security cameras, a high-tech wheelchair tries to run over him as it carries his best friend Sonja down a flight of stairs and an out-of-control bus demolishes his home, leaving his new stepfather severely injured. Not only is Jinks no stranger to gaming, hacking and cutting-edge computer systems, but she plunges her young protagonist into simultaneous character-testing conflicts as he feels forced to trick his beloved but slower and overprotective guardians, abandon ethics to hack into various private and government systems and struggle to control the wild anger that in high-pressure situations drives him to act toward others just like the despised, megalomaniac Prosper. As Cadel’s multiple adversaries don’t start showing their faces until late in the proceedings, much of the “war” seems fought in the abstract, but the climax is taut, absorbing and tantalizingly ambiguous. (Thriller. 12-15)
