George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.

Oddly paced with little payoff, this sequel falls victim to middle-volume slump. Rather than continuing the first volume’s excitement, this second installment reads more like an extended preamble for the next book. All the kids’ plans and wandering leaves them with new enemies and in worse shape than before. The rotating point of view is needlessly confusing and highlights uneven characterization. What worked well in the series opener fizzles in this sequel. However, Amber, with her poor impulse control, manic tendencies, and violent outbursts, is the source of most of their problems. Malik is pure bravado, focused on living life to its fullest, even if that means breaking some laws to do so. Eli and Tori are torn between enjoying their mastermind skills and battling their fears over who they may become. Malik, Eli, Tori, and Amber will need to draw upon all their criminal-mastermind DNA if they are to succeed in exposing their captors and saving the other clones. After discovering that their home of Serenity, New Mexico, is really a giant science experiment to test the effects of nurturing on clones of master criminals ( Masterminds, 2015), four teens escape and head out into the world in search of revenge and freedom.īut the scientists behind Project Osiris have no intention of allowing their test subjects to walk away.

Criminal destiny gordon korman