EVIL GENIUS

The smartest kid and his friends strike again.

Jake McQuade, the star of the first two books in Grabenstein’s series, is still an artificially precocious youngster whose jelly bean–enhanced smarts get him into and out of scrapes. This third installment follows the formula established in the first two: His best friends, Grace Garcia and Kojo Shelton, help him unravel a mystery; dastardly villains with alliterative names try to usurp his position; and short, snappy chapters full of short, snappy paragraphs keep the action moving apace. The story opens with pirate captain Aliento de Perro (“Dog Breath”) smuggling away a massive orange diamond known as la Gran Calabaza, the retrieval of which becomes the central adventure. Meanwhile, Jake is worried that the effect of Pakistani scientist Haazim Farooqi’s Ingestible Knowledge jelly beans is starting to wear off and that evil, wealthy, halitosis-afflicted Hubert Huxley will steal his spot when a new batch of those jelly beans turns Hubert into Captain Brainiac. The story—revolving around old and new characters and two separate jewels—is a little harder to follow than the last, and the central gimmick starts to wear thin as Hubert and Jake keep performing feats of intellect. Still, readers who are already invested in the characters will no doubt finish this one out of loyalty.

A weaker link in a fun series.