Evil Genius

From the Publisher

* "As the complex deceptions that have shaped Cadel's life come to light, his emotional unraveling and awakening will likely engross readers."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

* "Jinks fills out the cast with brilliantly conceived friends and adversaries . . . Cadel rides right up there with Artemis Fowl as a sympathetic anti-villain."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
* "Whiplash-inducing suspense writing will gratify fans of Anthony Horowitz's high-tech spy scenarios."—Booklist, starred review

Publishers Weekly

With a series of breakneck twists and turns, Jinks's (the Pagan Chronicles) latest novel follows Cadel Piggott, a seven-year-old Australian boy with an incredible mind and a proclivity toward mischief: "He loved systems: phone systems, electrical systems, car engines, complicated traffic intersections." Following a string of disasters, which Cadel engineers (e.g., hacking into the city's power grid), his desperate adoptive parents take him to a psychologist, Dr. Thaddeus Roth. But instead of refocusing Cadel on more positive activities, Dr. Roth encourages the boy to develop increasingly destructive plans, such as orchestrating massive traffic jams and manipulating his classmates' emotions so that they turn on one another. Dr. Roth also stuns Cadel by revealing that he is employed by Cadel's birth father, Dr. Phineas Darkkon, a criminal mastermind serving a life sentence. From prison, Dr. Darkkon established the Axis Institute for the world's genetically talented and criminally inclined. Drs. Roth and Darkkon convince Cadel to join its small freshman class, and Cadel slowly uncovers a conspiracy of lies and betrayals that leave no aspect of his life untouched. Jinks has created an intricate, well-constructed and layered reality in this hefty novel, and as the complex deceptions that have shaped Cadel's life come to light, his emotional unraveling and awakening will likely engross readers. Ages 12-up. (May)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

VOYA - Elaine J. O'Quinn

Imagine Harry Potter's Hogwarts in reverse-a school that teaches youth how to do as many evil acts as they can manage in order to contribute to World Domination-specialties accepted. That thought is the premise for this novel, originally published in Australia. Cadel Piggott is only seven when the story opens, but readers already know that his life is not going to be typical. After all, he is the only child of Dr. Phineas Darkkon, the most evil man in the world, and he is a genius. What better combination? By the time he is fourteen, Cadel is so enmeshed in a world of manipulation and deception that to get out, he must perform some of the very acts of evil that he wants to leave behind. In the end, he must even hurt people whom he wants to protect. Along the way, he will learn how to hack into any computer system in the world, become a master of deception and disguises, beat any legal system he encounters, and be confused on at least three occasions about who his parents really are. All that is easy compared to trying to figure out how to bring the evil empire of his father(s) tumbling down and escape with his life. This book will appeal to younger teens who can see the possibilities for adventure through the eyes of the bad guys. Although Cadel himself will in the end deny evil, he learns that no one remains untouched by it.

Children's Literature - Kathleen Karr

Cadel Piggott is no Artemis Fowl. He is one young genius with a nearly unfixable moral conundrum. Raised by foster parents who put Harry Potter's to shame, Cadel's only support comes from his psychologist, Thaddeus Roth—and Thaddeus approves Cadel's computer hacking and other ethically questionable pursuits. Such is the status quo as Cadel reaches the age of fourteen and completes high school. Next comes the boy's introduction to his real father, the jailed-for-life criminal mastermind Phineas Darkkon. With genes like these, Cadel barely blinks as he is enrolled in the studies of the Axis Institute: Basic Lying, Pure Evil, Embezzlement, Contagion, Assassination. His one outlet is Kay-Lee, an e-mail friend and math genius whose pure goodness offers options Cadel has never guessed existed. The Australian author Jinks explores her outrageous premise with complete elan. The novel is a no-holds-barred roller coaster ride through Cadel's mind as the young man—never a child—wakes to the devious tricks that have been perpetrated upon him. Can his barren, trustless soul believe in anyone or anything? Who? What? The book is almost impossible to put down. It is a brilliant tour de force that never cops out, never succumbs to a happy ending. While it raises its issues on a grand guignol scale, the issues are valid.

KLIATT - Paula Rohrlick

To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, May 2007: Cadel is a young genius with a particular gift for deciphering—and destroying—systems of all kinds. Encouraged by his psychologist (who turns out to have an agenda of his own), Cadel enrolls at age 14 in the Axis Institute for World Domination, designed to instruct students in everything evil, from computer hacking to embezzlement to poisons. Few students or even professors survive the lessons, especially once Cadel puts his mind to bringing down the Institute by sowing mistrust. Then Cadel comes to realize how he himself has been manipulated, and with the help of a computer pal named Kay-Lee, he tries to break free of the only world he's ever known. The great title and intriguing concept of a school that teaches how to wreak havoc may draw readers, but this is a rather lengthy tome, not an Artemis Fowl-like quick read. First published in Australia in 2005, some of the devices presented as futuristic, like a "computer phone," might seem laughably outdated to readers. Still, the dark humor and freakish characters (the student whose stench is so awful he has to wear a spaceman-like suit; the beautiful, devious, mind-reading twins) may grab fantasy readers with a cynical bent who are looking for something out of the ordinary. (A 2008 ALA Best Book for YAs.) Reviewer: Paula Rohrlick

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up
Cadel Piggott was hacking into computer systems by the time he was seven and causing all sorts of trouble by the time he fast-tracked through high school. At age 14, he is encouraged by his longtime "psychiatrist" to enroll in the Axis Institute. There, the classes include Misinformation, Disguise, Basic Lying, Embezzlement, and Explosives. Cadel settles into his first semester of studies, but soon begins to suspect that something is very wrong here. Through Partner Post, his online matching service experiment, he receives a cryptic warning from one of his subscribers, and he begins to make plans to investigate his teachers. A trail of hacked information takes him to places he doesn't want to go. A flowing and coherent style leads readers into the thriller that Evil Genius becomes. Although background information dominates the beginning of the book, the plot quickly picks up its dark and dangerous pace as Cadel moves through his fear and realization of what is happening around him. As an alternative thriller that shows the good side of evil, Jinks sets up a compelling world of lies, deceit, and betrayal that will have lovers of mystery or computer-based investigation on the edge as they devour this page-turner. A sequel is planned.
—Dylan ThomarieCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Carried along by much peeling back of layers of deception and repeated thickenings of plot, this hefty but engrossingly complex tale features a young super-brain being groomed for world domination. Under the tutelage of his mysterious psychologist Thaddeus, 13-year-old Cadel subtly engineered spectacular traffic jams in Sydney, caused all of his high school class to fail their finals and similar exploits. He now enters the exclusive Axis Institute, where innocuously named courses like "Coping Skills" and "Accounting" turn out to be tutorials in basic lying, embezzlement and such. Determined to develop a predictive program for all human behavior, he discovers himself enmeshed in multiple webs of intrigue, which, along with his own efforts to manipulate faculty and fellow students, result in an escalating array of fatalities. Gradually, he begins to wonder whether he's really cut out for the role of evil overlord. Along with keeping the suspense expertly tuned and stirring in any number of stunning revelations, Jinks fills out the cast with brilliantly conceived friends and adversaries. His emotional maturity realistically lagging behind his intellectual development, Cadel rides right up there with Artemis Fowl as a sympathetic anti-villain. (Fiction. 12-15)