posted on 21 Jun 2024

Swift and Hawk: Supernova by Logan Macx

This is the third instalment of the Swift and Hawk series following on from Undercover and Cyberspies. It’s a breathless, hi-octane adventure featuring the teenage special agents, Caleb (code name Swift) and Zen (code name Hawk). The two belong to a secret cyberspy team known as Möbius who are dedicated to foiling the dastardly plans of Razor, super-criminals seeking world domination.

Their mission this time is to retrieve from Razor their highly advanced AI programme that they refer to as Sam and who they think of as a colleague and friend. As if the task of getting the AI back isn’t tough enough, there’s an even more deadly reason that Razor want to get their hands on it – they plan to use it as the key final jigsaw piece in the creation of their own super-system that will guarantee their victory over Möbius. 

Bad and dangerous enough you might think but here’s the twist – Sam has been created by Caleb’s father and he’s built in a safety feature to prevent the programme being rewritten by outsiders. What is that feature? Calebs brainwaves: Sam will only respond to critical changes in its programme if it detects the presence of Calebs brain. As a result, Razor are after his head – literally.

The bad news for Caleb is that Razor’s most formidable – and truly scary – agent, Esperanza is completely obsessed with detaching Calebs head from his body and staying ahead of her and her devilish technologies result in a mind-bending road trip full of jeopardy.

But, luckily for the Möbius agents, all is not well inside the politics of Razor and Esperanza’s project is being challenges for priority by another smooth operator, a relatively new agent known as Valantin who thinks his project (an endless power supply that will run Razors network world-wide) is most important.

Inevitably, Hawk and Swift find themselves in the middle of it all, doubling their jeopardy.

Fans of Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider series will find themselves delighted with Swift and Hawk – there’s bundles of action, peril, technology and welcome dollops of humour (I especially liked the gloop that Zen creates which goes rogue in the car). You’ll not only find yourself zooming down American roads but you’ll end up in a secret underground base where a nuclear reactor is about to melt down!

Available from Walker Books, you will be able to get a copy from your local independent bookshop – who will be glad to order you a copy if they don’t have it on their shelves.

 

Terry Potter

June 2024