The Chaos Code by Justin Richards

BloomsburyWalker2007
ISBN: 978-1-59990-124-4
Format: Fiction
Rating: average
Grade: 8th Grade and up
CurriculumFramework: English
Fifteen year old British schoolboy Matt Stribling expects to be spending his vacation with his mother, only to be told that she has accepted a mysterious job offer in which children are not welcomed. And so he is sent off to his brilliant but absent minded archaeologist father’s only when he arrives there, he finds the place in disarray and his father missing. After deciphering a somewhat cryptic message telling him he is to go to his Aunt Jane’s and her employer Julius Venture, Matt’s adventure begins. With the help of some rather mysterious family friends, Matt soon discovers that his father had been seeking a an ancient code rumored to have brought down the Mayans and even perhaps even the mighty civilization of Atlantis. Matt and his friends must now travel the globe to rescue his father and to stop this so-called chaos code from being deployed at hands of a madman. Unfortunately I didn’t like this book as much as I thought I would. One problem was that the characters all seemed rather flat. It made it very difficult to connect to any of them. Another problem was that at times the book became bogged down in so many technical details, that it was very easy for the reader’s mind to wander and lose track of what was going on. The way the novel ended left open the possibility of a sequel, but to be perfectly honest, I can’t find myself being interested enough in reading it.
Reviewer: Kim Barker
LibraryCity: PIL/Dan
Reviewdate: 7/24/08