Evil Genius [Paperback]

Identity is a theme central to many YA books, however multiple award-winner Jinks comes at it from a slightly different angle than most in her latest novel. Thirteen year old genius Cadel Piggott lives in Sydney (Australia) with his distracted parents. Unfortunately, his advanced intellect makes it hard for him to understand how other people think, and he has no social skills. Bored out of his skull, Cadel quite naturally gets into some mischief (in this case some computer hacking). As a result, he's taken to see a psychologist, who, refreshingly, treats him like an adult. In a twist straight out of Joseph Campbell, the psychologist reveals that Cadel is in fact the secret son of incarcerated international arch-villain Dr. Darkkon. Fortunately for Cadel, the psychologist is Dr. Darkkon's agent and has been put in place to act as intermediary (and indoctrinator).

Cadel's brilliance and innate arrogance are played to, as he is told that his true father is working on a plot for world domination. Dr. Darkkon is sick of dim-wits running the show, and wants Cadel at his side to help him in this scheme. Toward that end, Cadel's progress through high-school is accelerated, and soon he's left that unhappy experience behind (with a parting gift of both physical and social wreckage), and is enrolled at the Axis Institute. A facade of higher education, its chemistry classes are all about poisons, art classes are about forgery, and the computer classes all about hacking. Cadel joins a class of freaks and geeks recruited from all over as prospective sidekicks or useful tools for Dr. Darkkon's plans.

So far, so good. Cadel is a cold character and while the book is obviously somewhat tongue-in-cheek with the arch-villain and the Evil U, Cadel's underlying melancholy is all too real. However, to his own astonishment, Cadel starts to develop -- gasp -- empathy! This theoretically springs from an online relationship he builds under false pretenses as well as the mysterious deaths of his classmates, but it feels rather arbitrary and inorganic to the story. Before long, Cadel finds himself playing a dangerous game of deception, trying to escape his father's evil plans for him and trying to connect with his online correspondent. This results in all kinds of machinations whereby he has to play the Axis Institute faculty off of each other. However, the instructors are never really developed in enough relief to make Cadel's complex maneuverings come to life. At a certain point I stopped caring, and just kept reading, confident that it would all work out in the end.

Indeed, about halfway through this massive book, the momentum runs out, and what had been a fairly enjoyable ride starts to get tedious. Cadel's eventual redemption is all too obvious and all too slow in coming, and the complex plots he weaves aren't particularly compelling (although they do fulfill the YA trope of the kid who outwits his teachers). And when Jinks attempts to up the tension and stakes at the end, it never gets that exciting, as the ending kind of peters out in a rather banal climax (which also happens to leave the door wide open for sequels). All in all, there are a few nice ideas here and there, but it's just too much of a slog to recommend.

Cadel Piggott isn't your typical kid. For one thing, he's extremely gifted intelligence wise. And for another, he's the son of the evil Dr. Darkkon, who is being held in prison for various crimes.

When Cadel's adopted parents take him to see a psychologist following Cadel's attempts to illegally hack into various computer systems, Cadel falls under the influence of Dr. Thaddeus Roth. Unknown to his adoptive parents, Roth is actually part of Darkkon's league of evil and instead of helping Cadel with his issues, Roth is helping Cadel embrace his evil side and learning how to be the evil genius his father desires.

The first half of the book, focusing on Cadel's meteoric rise through each grade and his problems relating to his classmates is the stuff of sheer genius. Cadel's use of psychological manipulation of his classmates, teachers and anyone else he comes into contact with is purely delightful. Seeing how Cadel figures out how to disrupt traffic patterns in his first attempts at evil plots is wonderful, but the real stroke of genius is Cadel's opening an on-line dating service to draw in unwitting victims and to raise money (Cadel keeps the would-be suitors separated geographically so they don't become any the wiser that it's a scam).

It's once Cadel graduates and decides to attend Axis University, a school set up by Darkkon for the training of evil geniuses, that the book becomes a big bogged down. The middle section, dealing with Cadel's various studies and the characters encountered there, doesn't really move as effortlessly as the first third. Thankfully, things pick up in the final third of the novel with Cadel begins to piece together that things might not necessarily be what they seem. The last hundred or so pages are pure action, with revelations coming quickly and plot twists galore.

Evil Genius, by Catherine Jinks, is a fresh and clever young adult novel written about a misunderstood child prodigy.

Cadel Piggott is a genius, especially with computers. When he gets into some trouble with the law at the age of seven, he foster parents take him to a psychologist who helps him discover his full potential. And eventually tells Cadel that his real father is none other than the villainous Dr. Phineas Darkkon.

Cadel's psychologist encourages his family to send Cadel to the Axis Institute. But the college is more than it seems. Also known as the Axis Institute for World Domination, it's actually a higher learning center for students who want to study from one of the three schools of Deception, Destruction, and Organic Distortion (also known as Applied Arts, Environmental Science, and Biomedical Science). There is even a fun website that you can visit to find out more about the institute and it's students and faculty. When Cadel's classmates begin dropping out (and dying) one-by-one, he begins second guessing his decisions. And the more secrets and evil that he uncovers, the less he likes who he has become.

Evil Genius is full of incredibly unique and creative characters. When I first began reading this, Cadel seemed to be the antithesis of Harry Potter. But Cadel actually has more depth to his character. And this is no story for smaller children. There are many deaths, though none are graphic. This is marketed to 12 years and up, and I agree. But a warning that the book is lengthy, with plenty of technical jargon, that I tended to skim over.

With more twists and turns than the Los Angeles freeway system, Evil Genius is a wonderfully surprising treat for all fans of great literary supervillains and those striving for world domination.

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