The boarding school that 15-year-old Max Gordon attends is already a bit mysterious—it seems every student is a budding 007 or Indiana Jones—but the mystery kicks into higher gear when Max barely eludes an assassin’s bullet. In a setup worthy of Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider, Max soon finds that his father, himself a globe-trotting adventurer, has gone missing in the Namibian desert. Max is instantly on the trail, teaming with a young Bushman named !Koga to survive the dangers of the wilderness and defeat ecological tragedy at the hand of the insidious Shaka Chang. The action is relentless: car chases spill over into hand-to-hand combat, cataclysmic weather breaks only to reveal killer scorpions (or baboons or crocodiles). Gilman has a flair for making the preposterous seem possible. It helps that he gives Max plenty of mental and physical bruises along the way, and keeps his adult characters every bit as sharp as his hero. This is the first in a planned series of Max Gordon books appearing under the moniker of “Danger Zone.” Grades 7-12. --Daniel Kraus
The Devil's Breath by David Gilman was fast-paced, exciting, and it drew me into the plot and characters. I enjoyed the fantasy aspect of the book: Max turning into a bird. However, for some reason, I didn't like this book as much as others. It's not one of my all-time favorites, although the book is definitely worth reading.
