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Summary
Summary
Cadel Piggott has a genius IQ and a fascination with systems of all kinds. At seven, he was illegally hacking into computers. Now he s fourteen and studying for his World Domination degree, taking classes like embezzlement, misinformation, and forgery at the Axis Institute, founded by criminal mastermind Dr. Phineas Darkkon.
Although Cadel may be advanced beyond his years, at heart he s a lonely kid. When he falls for the mysterious and brilliant Kay-Lee, he begins to question the moral implications of his studies for the first time. But is it too late to stop Dr. Darkkon from carrying out his plans? And is he really who he says he is?"
Author Notes
Catherine Jinks was born November 17, 1963 in Brisbane, Queensland. She received a degree in medieval history from the University of Sydney in 1986. After college, she worked as a journalist and editor before becoming a full-time writer. She has written more than 30 books for both children and adults including Pagan's Vows, Eye to Eye, Piggy in the Middle, The Reformed Vampire Support Group, and The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group. She is also the author of the Pagan Chronicles and Allie's Ghost Hunters series. She has won numerous awards including the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award three times, the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, the Aurealis Award for Science Fiction, the Australian Ibby Award, and the Davitt Award for Crime Fiction.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
The son of a Bond-style supervillain, young genius Cadel Darkkon attends his father's despotic Axis Institute, taking classes such as Basic Lying, Infiltration, and Embezzlement. His worldview changes, though, when he discovers his dad's lies could hurt Cadel's pen-pal, Kay-Lee. A slowish start with an uneven tone leads gradually to a heart-pounding, shifting-ground ending, employing thrilling feats of espionage and deception. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Is it possible to cultivate readers' affection for a character who has been trained from his tenderest years to dismiss evil as a 'loaded word"? Australian writer Jinks, author of the Crusades-era Pagan series, successfully meets the challenge in this very different novel. She devises gradations of wrongdoing so steep that her antihero's adversaries leave him (almost) smelling like a rose. At age seven, child prodigy Cadel Piggott lands in a shrink's office for illegal computer hacking, where psychologist Thaddeus Roth delivers startling counsel: 'Next time, don't get caught." Thaddeus is an agent of Cadel's real father, a brilliant crook who, from behind bars, manages to place Cadel at the secretive Axis Institute for World Domination. By 13, Cadel is earnestly studying 'Infiltration, Misinformation, and Embezzlement," but as he increasingly relies on an outside friendship, he privately plots to extricate himself from the paterfamilias.Comic-book fans will enjoy the school's aspiring villains (including one who floors foes with deadly B.O.), but this is more than a campy set-piece. Cadel's turnabout is convincingly hampered by his difficulty recognizing appropriate outlets for rage, and Jinks' whiplash-inducing suspense writing will gratify fans of Anthony Horowitz's high-tech spy scenarios. Although some of the technical concerns of evil geniuses (firewalls, tax shelters, nanotechnology) may stymie less-patient readers, most will press on, riveted by the chilling aspects of a child trapped in adult agendas that, iceberglike, hide beneath the surface.--Mattson, Jennifer Copyright 2007 Booklist
Bookseller Publisher Review
Cadel Piggott is a child genius and a handful. Expelled from his fancy school at age seven for computer hacking, his exasperated parents take him to see child psychologist Thaddeus Roth. Cadels first shock from Dr Roth is that hes adoptedand then Roth secretly puts him in contact with his sinister and manipulative birth father, who wants to take full advantage of Cadels special skills There are echoes of Lemony Snicket black humour and Harry Potter school japes, but Evil Genius is for an older audiencethe top-secret Axis Institute where Cadel is sent at age 13 to undertake a degree in World Domination is a very different kettle of fish to Hogwarts. As both staff and students at Axis fall prey to assorted gruesome accidents, Cadel begins to wonder exactly why hes been placed in the institute. The CBCA and Victorian Premiers Award-winning Jinks is a prolific and diverse writer for both children and adults, and Evil Genuis will be another crossover title with a broad potential audience, appealing as much to adults as to teens with a taste for the dark side. It is long, at almost 500 pages, but the short, snappy chapters make it easy to get through. Tim Coronel is AB&Ps editor C. 2005 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7-10-Catherine Jink's complex and lengthy novel (Harcourt, 2007) about Cadel Piggott, a young prodigy working toward his degree in World Domination at the Axis Institute, is fully voiced by Justine Eyer in this overly ambitious production. Set in Australia, with characters from New Jersey, England, and Germany and an American narrator, the varying accents stretch listeners and readers beyond their comfort zones, although the reading does become more fluid as the book progresses. The choice of a female narrator for this title, which includes mostly male characters, is odd. Several of the evil men sound more like agitated, annoying playground bullies. The drawn-out story line covers seven years and involves nearly the entire staff of Axis as they undermine and plot against each other, while Cadel works against them. The cast of characters becomes muddled in the listening, and is easier to keep up with in the print version where readers can flip back to check previous passages. Listeners looking for a tale of young prodigies at school or crime and espionage novels would do better with Stewart Trenton's The Mysterious Benedict Society (Listening Library, 2007) and Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series.-Kelly Vikstrom, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
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) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
One Cadel Piggott was just seven years old when he first met Thaddeus Roth. Dr. Roth worked in a row house near Sydney Harbor. The house was three stories high, its garden shrouded by a great many damp, dark trees. There was moss growing on its sandstone window ledges. Curtains drawn across all its windows gave it a secretive air. Its front fence was made of iron, with a spike on top of each post; beside the creaking gate was a brass sign bearing Dr. Roth's name and qualifications. "That's it," said Mrs. Piggott. "Number twenty-nine." "Well, we can't stop here," her husband replied. "No parking." "I told you to park back there." "It doesn't matter. We'll try down this street." "Stuart, that's a one-way street." "Dammit!" "I knew we'd never find a space. Not around this area." "Just shut up for a minute, will you?" Mr. and Mrs. Piggott were not Cadel's real parents. They had adopted him when he was not quite two years old. Mrs. Piggott was thin and blond, Mr. Piggott fat and gray. They almost never agreed about anything, but that didn't matter because they almost never met. Their busy schedules kept them away from home, and one another, a good deal of the time. At the suggestion of the police, however, they had both agreed to attend this interview. "We're going to be late," Mrs. Piggott warned her husband after they had circled the block four times in Mr. Piggott's big, gleaming Mercedes-Benz. "Just let us out, for god's sake." "I'll park here." "Stuart, you'll never fit in there!" "Watch me." Cadel said nothing. He sat on the backseat, dressed in his good brown cords and a lamb's-wool sweater, staring out the window at Dr. Roth's house. He didn't like the look of it. He thought it had a murky, ominous appearance. "I don't want to go," he said flatly when Mrs. Piggott got out and opened the door beside him. "I know, honey, but we have to." "No we don't," Cadel retorted. ily: 'Times New Roman'" "Yes we do." "There were no formal charges," Cadel pointed out, in his high, clear voice. "It was just a suggestion." "That's right," said Mr. Piggott, yanking Cadel out of the back of the car. "And when the police make a suggestion, you always follow it. Rule number one." "Be careful, Stuart, you'll wreck his clothes." Cadel was so small--even for a seven-year-old--that he didn't stand a chance against Mr. Piggott. Though he dragged his feet and hung off his adoptive parents' hands like a sack of melons, he was forced across the street and through the front gate of number twenty-nine. The path beyond the gate was mushy with wet leaves. There was a rich smell of decay. The door knocker was a ring in the mouth of a snarling lion's head, painted black, like the rest of the ironwork. Cadel noted with interest the switchboard near the door. It was obviously ancient, full of porcelain fuses and dial meters. The Piggotts' own house was only three years old, with a state-of-the-art electrical system, so Cadel was fascinated by this dusty old relic. But he was not permitted to gaze at it for long. "Come on," Mr. Piggott barked. "The door's open." And he pushed against it, causing it to swing back and reveal a long, dark hallway carpeted with dingy Persian rugs. About halfway down this hallway, a staircase the color of walnut swept up to the next floor. There were several doors to the right of the front entrance, but only the closest stood ajar. "Hello!" said Mr. Piggott, marching straight through it. He wasn't a man who normally waited for anything. "We've an appointment with Dr. Roth. For ten thirty." Gripped firmly around the wrist, Cadel had no choice but to follow Mr. Piggott. He found himself in a reception area: two rooms divided by a pair of folding mahogany doors. There were two marble fireplaces and two chandeliers. Cadel noticed cobwebs on the chandeliers. A woman sat behind an antique desk. "Good morning," she said calmly. "What name, please?" "Piggott," Mr. Piggott replied, in pompous tones. "Stuart, Lanna, and Cadel." He looked surprised when the woman rose, revealing herself to be almost as wide and as tall as he was. She had a broad, square face and small blue eyes. She was wearing a suit the color of dried blood. "I'll just go and tell Dr. Roth that you've arrived," she declared, before lumbering out of the room. Cadel didn't watch her go. He was more interested in the computer that she'd left behind, with its alluring glow and contented hum. The screen saver was one that he'd never seen before: a pattern of falling dominoes. "Don't even think about it," Stuart rasped when he realized what was attracting Cadel's attention. "Sit down. Over there." "Look, honey, there are toys for you to play with," Lanna said, nudging a large basket with the toe of her expensive Italian shoe. Sulkily, Cadel eyed the basket's contents. He was used to the broken activity centers and torn books offered for the amusement of younger patients at his local doctor's office and wasn't hopeful about the distractions provided here. But to his astonishment, he quickly spied an old voltmeter, together with a book on flies, a plastic human skull (life-sized), a Rubik's Cube, and a Frankenstein mask. Further investigation uncovered a dead spider embedded in a resin paperweight, a shark's tooth, a Galaxy Warrior complete with Thermopuncher torpedoes, and a very curious fragment of puzzle bearing the picture of a staring, bloodshot eye over a set of claw marks. He was puzzling over this macabre image when the sound of heavy footsteps reached his ears. It seemed that Dr. Roth's receptionist was returning, clumping down the stairs like someone wearing ski boots. Lanna, who had flung herself onto an armchair, immediately jumped to her feet. Stuart glared at the door. "Dr. Roth will see you now," the receptionist announced when she finally appeared. "You can go straight up." Stuart and Lanna exchanged glances. "Are you sure?" Lanna objected. "I mean, does he want to discuss things in front of Cadel?" "Oh yes," the receptionist declared firmly. Something about her voice made Cadel look up. He studied her with care, from the top of her permed head to the soles of her brown shoes. She smiled in response, and the Piggotts all recoiled. Her mouth looked as if it belonged to an older, harsher century. "Why are your teeth black?" Cadel wanted to know. "Why are your teeth white?" the receptionist responded, wending her way back to her desk. Lanna snatched at Cadel's hand and hustled him out of the room. She and her husband whispered together as they climbed the stairs, which creaked and groaned beneath them. "Stuart, what was the matter with . . . ?" "I don't know." "Do you think this is a good idea?" "Course it is." "But what about that woman? Her teeth?" Stuart shrugged. They had reached a landing, but it wasn't the right one. From above their heads, a voice said, "Up here." A man was draped over the second-floor banisters. He was tall and thin and wore a tweed jacket. His thick, dark hair was going gray. "That's the bathroom," he remarked in a soothing voice with a cultured English accent. "I'm afraid my office is at the top, here." "Dr. Roth?" said Stuart. "Yes, indeed." "We're a bit late," Lanna offered a trifle breathlessly. "No parking." "You should turn that front yard of yours into a parking lot," Stuart added, climbing the last flight of stairs. Gracefully, Dr. Roth moved to push open the door of his office. "I would," he said, "if the local council would let me. Heritage listing, I'm afraid." Stuart grunted. Lanna smiled a meaningless social smile. They both passed into Dr. Roth's office ahead of Cadel, who stopped on the threshold. He gazed up at Thaddeus. "Why does she have black teeth?" Cadel inquired. "Wilfreda? I'm not sure," Thaddeus replied. "Poor dental hygiene, I should think. Her parents had very strange ideas about diet and doctors. Maybe they didn't believe in toothbrushes, either." He cocked his head. "So you're Cadel." "Yes." "Come in, Cadel." Dr. Roth's office surprised Cadel, because it was full of modern furniture and computer equipment. There were a number of glossy cabinets, some full of filing drawers, some with cables running out of them. Cadel's eyes gleamed when he spotted those cables. "Sit down, please." Dr. Roth gestured at a cluster of couches placed between his desk and a pair of French doors. Lanna chose the crimson couch, settling down onto it very carefully, her bare knees drawn together. Stuart dropped into his seat like a stone. Copyright (c) Catherine Jinks, 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted online at www.harcourt.com/contact or mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777. Excerpted from Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
