Will Follow White Rabbits: Shatterproof

Shatterproof by Roland Smith

This could very easily be the 39 Clues book with which I decide to finish – forever – and not look back. It was that bad, boring, uneventful. It is a shame to say this since an important character is actually killed. That ought to be important. That should mean something. But there was no suspense and no surprise and no good reason. The plot didn’t go anywhere. Even the huge diamond on the cover of the book is really irrelevant to the plot of the story. It is such a minute and inconsequential part to wind up upon the cover.

When I put the book down and looked back on what I had just read, I realized that it was very dissimilar to the previous three books in the Cahills Vs.Vespers series. I went back and reread my reviews of those novels and was surprised that I found any interest in them. I was surprised at how much I seemed to know about the plot and the characters and their actions. Why they were where they were and for what goal they were working towards. Because after reading this most recent addition to the series, I don’t think I could have explained any of it without the help of the reviews.

In this case, Dan and Amy, along with Atticus and Jake, are asked to steal an obscenely huge and priceless diamond from a German museum. But in the end, they were only creating a diversion for another, separate, Vesper theft in the background. The Cahill’s mission was not the actual goal.

The group back in the states who are trying to locate the hostages, make very little of an appearance in the book. And when they do make a brief appearance, no real information exchanges hands. Ian goes at it with Saladin the cat – and that is it!

I couldn’t remember why Jonah and Hamilton were in Pompeii in the first place. It wasn’t reiterated. Here they tail Luna. They even follow her out of country, but I don’t know why and what that has to do with their original mission of going to the cities - cities that the lawyer directed them to because they were so vitally important.

Amazingly, the hostages finally manage to escape. Exasperatingly they are immediately recaptured save one who may or may not be dead. We finally find out where the hostages are being held. The reader does anyway, but not the characters that are desperate for such information…

Amy and Dan are sent on yet another clue hunt in the middle of a desert. They have very little information and a tremendous number of “libraries” to squirrel through. And of course, as always, a ridiculously limited amount of time in which look. There is absolutely no way that they will be able to succeed. But they do. Kind of.

HUGE disappointment on all fronts. Please stop. This is sooo less of a well-developed series compared to the original 39 Clues. It’s a laughable money machine. OR the author is inept at least where this series is concerned. Perhaps he just got handed the worst section of the series.