Undercover Brother and Snoop Dog: Secret, Secret Agent Guy by Kira Bigwood

SECRET, SECRET AGENT GUY,

WORKING FOR THE FBI.

His trenchcoat and Fedora hanging on the door, the super sleuth relaxes in his PJ's and with his bullfrog-slippered feet on his desk, perusing the newspaper.

But a message comes through on his walkie-talkie from the intrepid chief, ordering him to grab his gear and get on the job. He stows his stuff in his kit, cleverly disguised as a third grade lunchbox--with ropes, grappling hook, and see-in-the-dark glasses. He slips downstairs on silent feet to surveil the security guards. Ah, there they are, busy listening to tunes on Alexa!

But his device begins to quiver with a message from headquarters. Chief directs him to a backpack stashed in the kitchen cupboard:

"SET YOUR TRAPS AND GET TO WORK!"

"IN THE SHADOWS SOMETHING LURKS!"

Suddenly the security guards send Spy Dog, who leaps over the deadfall trap set for them. Luckily, he's turned double agent, actually on their side! Grabbing the backpack in his mouth and trotting upstairs, he passes it over, and the secret agent guys attain possession of the contraband, a giant top secret lollipop concealed in the closet. But, OH, NO! The fake box broadcasts a call to the authorities!

MAY DAY! MAY DAY!

Could it be that their code has been blown? By a double agent sister...?

SECRET, SECRET AGENT GIRL!

It's "Curses, foiled again!" by a super-secret big sister, in Kira Bigwood's new Secret, Secret Agent Guy, (Atheneum, 2921), which we hope is the beginning of a brothers-and-sister secret agent wars series. It's a fun and funny kid pleaser, coded in spy lingo and a clever rhyme scheme, only slightly concealed, to be read and sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star!"

"For readers looking for a little action and suspense in their bedtime story...." says Horn Book's reviewer.

Nothing Ever Happens Around Here! Codename Zero by Chris Rylander

There I was in the parking lot of my school, minding my own business, when some mysterious dude shows up and hands me an even more mysterious package. Okay, so I wasn't so much minding my own business as I was putting the finishing touches on the fourth biggest prank in Erik Hill Middle School history. But the point was the same--I was busy.

"Hey, kid," the guy said. "Take this."

Suddenly I was holding a package. "What am I supposed to....?"

"Just listen," he said, glancing over both shoulders. "Guard this with your life; the fate of the world depends on it. You must deliver this to Mr. Jensen.Trust no one."

Carson Fender is bored. Nothing ever happens in Minnow (a.k.a., Minott),  North Dakota. Or when it happens, it's the same old thing that always happens, like the annual circus with the same old tired tiger and tilt-a-whirls.

To maintain his joie de vivre, Carson is forced to carry out ever-more elaborate pranks at school, and he's right in the middle of a doozie involving a herd of fainting goats on the lawn in front of the school while his co-conspirators Dillon and Danielle use the distraction to glue down everything on every teacher's desk in the school. And then the dude in the black sunglasses appears in his life.

Now Carson can't even enjoy the chaos engendered by his prank. There's that mysterious package, in plain brown wrapper. He's supposed to deliver it to Mr. Jensen, but which one?  There are two Mr. Jensens at his school. That night Carson can't sleep until he finds out what is inside that package, but then... when he loosens the paper at one end, he triggers a warning that makes him wish yesterday had just been a regular, boring day.

YOU NOW HAVE FORTY-FIVE HOURS AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES TO INITIATE FAIL-SAFE MEASURES BEFORE SELF-DESTRUCTION.

Carson Fender discovers that his weirdo conspiracy nut friend Dillon has been right all along. Things are not what they seem in Minnow, North Dakota. Below the boring surface, literally, underground below their favorite sledding hill, is the world headquarters of The Agency, the mega-spy system from which the CIA, FBI, and NSA take their orders. The two Mr. Jensens are, of course, Agency secret agents. Carson is deputized as Agent Zero, given cool spy gear like night-vision contacts, fog shooters, and small explosive charges disguised as fruit chews, and assigned to protect a Russian twelve-year-old named Olek until his parents can testify against a ring of terrorists on trial at The Hague.

The terrorists who have infiltrated the area know Olek is in hiding in Minnow, but they don't know who he is, so Carson is given the task of making Olek look like an average North Dakota kid, invisible in the crowd of other dark-haired seventh graders. But of course, the plan goes awry, Olek is captured, and Carson finds himself on his own to save his friend ...and the world.

At least, it's not boring.

Chris Rylander's latest Codename Zero (The Codename Conspiracy)(Walden Pond Press, 2014), offers middle readers a witty and game main character who gladly exchanges seventh grade ennui for international espionage, at least until the game gets a bit more deadly than he expected. Plenty of bad-guy spies from central casting, a couple of best buddies who are up for anything, and a Russian kid who does Russky stand-up comedy like a young Sacha Baron Cohen doing Borat make for a funny and fast-moving read in the best Spy Kids tradition. Just the thing for those summertime blahs.

Chris Rylander is also the author of a comic middle-school big operator series, The Fourth Stall. Fans of James Patterson's best selling Rafe Khatchadorian Middle School series will find Rylander's books suits their common comedy core to a T.

Romance, Espionage, and Empire: Palace of Spies by Sarah Zettel

A warning to all young ladies of delicate breeding who wish to embark upon lives of adventure: Don't.

Hard-won wisdom, earned the hard way by Peggy Fitzroy.

"I must begin with a frank confession. I became Lady Francesca Wallingham only after I met the man calling himself Tinderflint. This was after my betrothal, but before my uncle threw me into the street and barred the door.

Before that I was simply Margaret Preston Fitzroy, known as Peggy."

A orphaned poor relation, Peggy has enjoyed a pleasantly genteel upbringing in her resentful uncle's house, sharing lessons, fashions, and gossip with her cousin Olivia, also sixteen, until her uncle abruptly announces that he has arranged a marriage of convenience for her with Sebastian, the son of another influential merchant. On first sight, at her first grown-up ball, Sebastian seems not too bad, handsome and charming, but with a charm which quickly turns brutish when he assaults her in the garden. Rescued by an unlikely white knight, the rotund, middle-aged gentleman who calls himself Mr. Tinderflint, Peggy tries to put the experience behind her. But when Peggy refuses a forced marriage between herself and her assailant, her uncle casts her out of the house and she turns to Mr. Tinderflint, who makes her a very peculiar offer, to take the place of his ward at court, at a price.

"I will be as plain as I can.  Lady Francesca Wallingham was named one of the maids of honor to Caroline, our new Princess of Wales.  But Lady Francesca was struck by sudden illness while visiting at home and died of a fever.  It is our intent that you should take up the post in her stead."

It seems Peggy bears a striking resemblance to Francesca, and she is promised a crash course in courtly etiquette and entertainments to help with the impersonation, all to provide Mr. Tinderflint with a steady flow of information on the internal politics at court.  Having nowhere else to turn, Peggy agrees to the deception, but when she takes up the pretense of being Lady Francesca, she finds there there is more to her role than playing cards, flirting, and reporting royal gossip.

England's Hanoverian king, George I, is threatened by the ever-plotting and potentially powerful Jacobites, who scheme to restore the Scottish James to the throne, and Peggy soon discovers that Lady Fran had been up to her delicate eyebrows in royal treason, plotting with her lover, the purported footman Robert, to discover Queen's Anne's supposed Letter of Secession passing the crown to James and use it to overthrow the crown. Peggy fears Francesca's death was murder at the hands of a rival faction and realizes that she is caught between two unhappy prospects: she fears she will share the real Fran's fate if she cannot unravel the strands of the Jacobite conspiracy and she knows that if she is discovered to be a spy at court, she will face the gallows.

Sarah Zettel's forthcoming Palace of Spies (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) is a cracking good piece of historical fiction that has it all, a mystery with midnight trysts, documents sewn into the drapes and hidden in fireplace carvings, spies and counterspies galore, and deadly danger all the while, with a smart and witty heroine who cleverly navigates the mean girls among the ladies-in-waiting, carries out a role which rivals that of a stage diva, and wisely defers romance in pursuit of her goals. There are plenty of historical touches that will please costume drama buffs and a hold-your-breath conclusion in the dark, deserted Kensington Palace where Queen Anne died, all the elements which prove author Sarah Zettel the perfect mistress of her genre. A wicked page-turning romp through a turbulent period with a quick-witted heroine with the talent to trump the game.

Sarah Zettel, author of the popular American Fairy series and other science fiction and fantasy novels, promises that this book will be the first of a trilogy of historical fiction adventures for young adult readers.