THE WONDER TEST

International spydom meets cutthroat suburban elitism.

After the sudden death of her husband, FBI agent Lina Connerly temporarily moves with her teenage son across the country to Northern California. Her father has also died recently, and she figures she can deal with his house while Rory attends the local public school, giving them both a change of scenery after having lost Fred. The school has all the markers of affluent suburban America: overly involved parents, a ridiculous endowment, and the Wonder Test, an extreme standardized test taken by all the schools in Silicon Valley. Studying such esoteric categories as “Ethicalities” and “Future Functionalities,” students don’t attend any real classes but instead spend all of their time taking seminars that will prepare them for the test. Lina isn’t overly concerned about the school's eccentricities, but when she hears that three students have gone missing in past years only to reappear a week later, underfed and with their heads shaved, her spider sense begins to tingle. Having spent her FBI career in foreign counterintelligence, she can’t resist a mystery. Between pinging phones, following suspects, and staging interrogations, Lina eventually approaches the truth—and danger. When Rory’s girlfriend disappears on the eve of the Wonder Test, Lina and Rory must find her. Appealingly, all of this happens as Lina navigates her own grief, comes to terms with the way she has allowed her job to consume her, and faces the fact that Rory shares her interest in intrigue. The overlay of international spycraft on suburban California, whose shiny facade conceals the most heinous of sins and vanities, is surprisingly effective. Richmond also has fun by including a question from the Wonder Test at the beginning of each chapter, emphasizing the ridiculously competitive world of affluent high schools.

The plot is sound, the action exciting, and the characters resoundingly human.