Evil Genius

Title: Evil Genius
Author: Catherine Jinks

What it's about: Cadel is a genius who's hacking into computers and causing massive chaos by the time he's seven years old. His parents take him to a shrink, Dr. Roth, but the good doctor is actually the henchman of Phineas Darkkon, an evil mastermind who is currently in prison and who is also Cadel's father. Dr. Roth and Dr. Darkkon help Cadel reach his evil genius potential, and when he's fourteen and graduated from high school, they sign him up for the Axis Institute, a small college that was founded by Darkkon to train Cadel.

What I thought: Not as much of supervillain spoof as I first thought it would be. The writing is quite good, though, and it has the right touch of humor. The pacing is mainly where this book has its problems. It drags on rather too long in some places, and that's not a good thing when the book is almost 500 pages long. Still, the cast of characters are interesting, with most of the stereotypical evil genius types being represented. Some of the twists are predictable, but others, not so much.

Overall: A solid, interesting read.