Enemy Exposure

January 1, 2017
Teen spy Jocelyn recruits double agents from KATO to gain intelligence, but can she trust them?Jocelyn Steely, now code-named Raven, has a new mission at the International Defense Agency. She and Travis (code name: Scorpion), her former enemy-turned-confidant, must find Eliza Foster, an English girl kidnapped by KATO as leverage against her weapons-expert father. The situation is personal: Joss was taken for similar reasons. She's still haunted by PTSD and a lingering addiction to the drug Gerex. A decoded North Korean message pins the future of KATO's training and control on Eliza, and when Joss extracts the girl from a safe house in Russia, it's clear that different evils were done to her. Eliza wasn't honed into a brutal weapon--she was an experiment. Joss decides that the only way to thwart KATO and learn the nature of what was done to Eliza is to recruit double agents. But not everyone at the IDA trusts making deals with KATO, and Joss risks being caught with the promise of no rescue regardless of new alliances. Joss' latest mission is filled with well-paced intrigue, making for a suspenseful page-turner. However, the much-hyped North Korean agents bend to her will too easily, and attempts to build a relationship with her once-estranged father read as ancillary to the plot. For all that this is a story about North Korean espionage, racial differences are oddly downplayed; Joss, Travis, and Eliza are all evidently white. High-octane espionage that's heavy on thrills but light on character growth. (Thriller. 14-18)

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February 1, 2017

Gr 7 Up-Jocelyn Steely was kidnapped when she was a little girl and brainwashed into being a spy for KATO, a North Korean organization. She double-crossed them, though, and escaped with the help of her friends in the IDA, an international spy organization. In this second installment in the series, Jocelyn seeks revenge. On a mission with the IDA, she learns of a new mind-control serum that KATO is planning, and she knows that it's up to her to stop its development. In a clever move, she infiltrates a secret base where the serum is kept. This fast-paced title will hold even the shortest attention spans and will appeal to teen fans of The Bourne Identity. The protagonist always outsmarts and defeats her enemies in the KATO agency, and her perfect success record may frustrate some readers; while she struggles, she never makes a mistake. As a result, the novel might become too safe for some readers. Nearly halfway through the book, they will realize that no matter what happens, everything will be OK, much like in their favorite television serials. Still, that knowledge won't dampen the excitement for those seeking nonstop action.

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2018
Jocelyn Steely, a.k.a. Raven, seeks vengeance on KATO, the North Korean spy agency that brainwashed and tortured her as a child. Though still recovering from PTSD and an involuntary addiction to KATO drug Gerex, Raven uses counter-espionage to turn the tables on KATO and save another girl from a similiar ordeal. Plot thrills compensate for insufficient character development in this second spy adventure.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)