From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up–Petty thief and slacker extraordinaire Evan Macalister is back for more international espionage in this sequel to
Finding Lubchenko (Penguin, 2005). Just when the teen thinks his life is getting back to normal, he is again dragged into the world of bioterrorism. After his father leaves for an emergency trip to Brussels, Evan gets a mysterious phone call telling him that his fathers business partner, Mr. Richmond, will be transporting a shipment of live smallpox virus to Switzerland to sell to a terrorist group. The anonymous caller also informs him that Mr. Richmond plans to murder his dad, as well as Evan and his two friends. He decides that the best course of action is to blow off summer school, convincing Erika and Ruben to jet off to Europe with him to save the day. Chaos ensues as the trio quickly learns that Mr. Richmonds henchmen are more ruthless than they had thought and that they are in way over their heads. Reading like an action movie, this sequel packs just as much punch as the first book. Evan is as contemptuous as ever, making sure to stay true to his smart-mouthed self even at the most inopportune moments. Thanks to a precise summary of the previous events, this book can stand alone, but readers new to the story would be missing out on much of the fun. One can only hope for another installment.
–Michelle Roberts, Merrick Library, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This stand-alone sequel to
Finding Lubchenko (2005) is lighthearted, fast-paced, and sums up the first book with impressive brevity. It's the summer before his senior year, and wealthy (but lonely) Evan Macalister finds out that his father's nasty business partner is about to smuggle a shipment of live smallpox virus into Europe and wreak havoc with it. Evan, his girlfriend, Erika, and his best friend, Ruben, leave Seattle and head to Europe to search for Lubchenko, the mysterious international freedom fighter who helped them in the first book, and foil the bioterrorism plot. Add to this Evan's distant father and his mother's death from cancer, and you've got a constantly moving adventure with small forays into psychological trauma. The adventure story line is more successful than the emotional one, but the dialogue is believably catty and witty, and the teens make realistically impulsive decisions (occasionally tempered by Erika's sound judgment). Although not an essential purchase, this quick-paced read will appeal to those who love action movies as well as
Finding Lubchenko's fans.
Debbie CartonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
