Mission 1: Game On

September 1, 2013

Gr 3-5-Max Flash is a pint-sized escapologist with magician parents. The hardest thing in his day is trying to master the Houdini water escape to his parents' satisfaction. This is about to change when he learns their true identities as well as his fate. Montgomery and Carly Flash are agents for the DFEA (Department for Extraordinary Activity), and their basement has a secret communication center where an agent named Zavonne communicates with the family when there is a mission they need to perform. Max is wanted by the DFEA for his size as well as his contortionist and escapologist skills. In his first mission, he has to infiltrate Nexus Scope computer company to contain a game character that has somehow jumped the line from virtual to plain old reality. The DFEA is providing three gadgets that he can use only one time to help him on his mission. Filled with straightforward sentences, each short, well-paced chapter ends with a cliff-hanger and the pages are adorned with Amerimanga-style illustrations. Interestingly some of the vocabulary seems higher than expected for a series that will be popular with reluctant readers, and there are several Briticisms in the text. Subsequent books follow the same format; Max is given a mission and three gadgets to help him complete it successfully. Fans of video games and nonstop action, as well as children looking for a fast read, will enjoy this attractively packaged series.-Stacy Dillon, LREI, New York City

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2013
A series opener introduces a crime-fighting preteen escapologist. Max Flash is a first-class escape artist and master illusionist who spends his free time bound in chains trying to escape from tanks of water. But when Max discovers that his parents are actually undercover agents for a secret organization known as the Department for Extraordinary Activity, life at the Flash household becomes even more interesting. In this kickoff novel, a programmer from the hottest gaming company in the world accidentally creates a portal between the real and Virtual worlds, and Max is called on by the DFEA to use his unique skill set to travel to the Virtual world and close the portal so that rogue characters can't travel back and forth between worlds and wreak havoc. All of the ingredients are there--the premise is intriguing, there's the promise of fast-paced action, and a Houdini-esque kid protagonist has the potential to be a winning character--but unfortunately, the book fails to ever truly bring Max or his story to life. Even the artwork is disappointingly one-dimensional. The story is told in the third person by a decidedly adult narrator, and Max is never allowed to find his own voice and connect on an emotional level with readers. The result is a series opener that falls frustratingly short of its potential; here's hoping subsequent volumes (the first six are publishing simultaneously) improve. (Adventure. 9-12)

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January 1, 2014
Max Flash, a budding escape artist and magician, is put into the field for the Department for Extraordinary Activity. Using his talents, Max pulls off incredible missions in a virtual reality world, outer space, the deep sea, and at the site of an ancient Egyptian pyramid. Slick, active black-and-white illustrations match the spirit of the frenetically high-octane, fast-paced prose.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)