SPY HIGH

In this over-the-top secret-agent caper with a comic-book feel, six kids, each with a special talent and a psychological issue, are recruited to join a select training academy for secret agents. Drawn from the street and the elite, these exceptional, though one-note, teenagers perform beautifully on tests of skill, but their crew is racked with rivalry and interpersonal problems and refuses to gel. The plot heats up when the group is sent on what they think is a bucolic bonding weekend. But unbeknown to them, the school has deliberately sent them on an appointment with peril, a grotesquely ludicrous (though following a convention of the genre, not really meant to be believable) situation involving genetic mutants made by a modern-day Frankenstein. Can the group throw aside their animosity and work together as a true team? High on action, adventure, and derring-do but more cursory on character development, this will please fans of the genre, but garner no new converts. First in a series. (Fiction. 12+)