by David Wong
St. Martin’s, 2017
This review was first published by Booklist on September 21, 2017.
David, John, and Amy are back in their third adventure (after This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It, 2012), and it’s as snarky, bleak, and funny as one could hope for. The narrative starts with a high-speed car chase and never slows down, racing headlong at a breathtaking pace. Children are being kidnapped; the Big Bad is a shape-shifter; and there’s an abandoned mine, a motorcycle gang, and yet another mysterious black-cloak organization. Our heroes remain hilariously incompetent and incredibly lucky. Then things get really weird. This book is a mind-trip, messing with the characters’ heads and making the reader question reality right alongside them. These are established characters, so readers shouldn’t look for much development. It’s also a bit too fast-paced: it’s easy to miss details that need to be remembered later. Although it’s not the strongest entry in the series, it’s exciting and a great deal of fun, which is really what Wong’s fans want.
John the Librarian 