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inkhearted 's review for:
Evil Genius
by Catherine Jinks
You have to admire Catherine Jinks a little for being totally uncompromising when it comes to committing to crafting her characters. You take a book like Evil Genius and its ensuing sequels: long, complex plots with elaborate set-ups and an astonishingly huge cast of oddball minor characters and it seems like all the elements would fight against each other. What Jinks does here though is somehow nail at the heart and humanity at the root of her story even as she constructs the elaborate house of cards her plot hinges upon. That in itself takes quite a bit of genius.
Cadel Piggott, son of an evil mastermind, is a prodigy himself who has been raised in an environment where half the people around him are outwardly evil, and the jury's still out on the other half. As the various deceptions of his childhood are exposed he has to decide who he really is and not get killed in the process.
Prepare for a LOT of plot twists, mistaken identities, scams, moral ambiguity, betrayals, and delicious gadgetry in this trilogy/series. The books all start with a slow build-up as all the pieces of the various puzzles are lined up and hit a breakneck pace once the major scam or conspiracy or plan at hand is set into motion. The evil villains that Cadel contends with aren't of the mustache-twirling variety but breathe a real sense of malice and danger into the story. While Cadel's computer tinkering gets a little technical at times, it's this real, driving sense of suspense and peril that turns these intricate plots into page-turners.
Cadel Piggott, son of an evil mastermind, is a prodigy himself who has been raised in an environment where half the people around him are outwardly evil, and the jury's still out on the other half. As the various deceptions of his childhood are exposed he has to decide who he really is and not get killed in the process.
Prepare for a LOT of plot twists, mistaken identities, scams, moral ambiguity, betrayals, and delicious gadgetry in this trilogy/series. The books all start with a slow build-up as all the pieces of the various puzzles are lined up and hit a breakneck pace once the major scam or conspiracy or plan at hand is set into motion. The evil villains that Cadel contends with aren't of the mustache-twirling variety but breathe a real sense of malice and danger into the story. While Cadel's computer tinkering gets a little technical at times, it's this real, driving sense of suspense and peril that turns these intricate plots into page-turners.