Montmorency's Revenge - Hardcover

Eleanor Updale studied history at St. Anne’s College in Oxford, England, before becoming a producer of TV and radio current affairs programs for the BBC. She is studying for a Ph.D. at the new Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary College, University of London. She is also a trustee of the charity Listening Books. She lives in England. Montmorency is her first book.

As in its predecessor, Montmorency and the Assassin (2006), this title—the fourth in a YA series unusual for its mostly adult cast—has diffused its focus from Montmorency himself (now a respectable gentleman and father of a teenage son) to a sprawling network of characters linked by grief over an anarchist's murder of George Fox-Selwyn. The friends pursue revenge on many fronts, European and American, with codes and other spycraft adding special appeal to this installment. The intricate backstory and large cast make this plot-driven adventure unsuitable for newcomers, but readers captivated by previous entries' supply of "that cloak-and-dagger stuff" will find more of the same here. Mattson, Jennifer