Friday, July 25, 2008

Book Review: Specialists: The Winning Element by Shannon Greenland

It’s GiGi’s third mission and this time, it’s personal. She has a chance to bring down the notorious criminal who was responsible for her parent’s deaths. Lust for revenge makes her give team leader TL an ultimatum which results in her having to design the mission herself. And when she goes over intel and looks for a suitable cover, she realizes that she’s going to have to bring sullen goth girl chemical specialist Beaker with her – and that they’ll have to pose as cheerleaders.

This slim addition to the Specialist series has a ton packed in its 230 pages. We get to know Beaker’s back story as well as more about GiGi’s. We get to see Beaker and GiGi in intense and hilarious cheer training sessions to get ready for the mission (the required back handspring maneuver pretty much killed any cheerleading aspirations I had – oh who am I kidding? I can’t even do a cartwheel!) And we get the mission itself which is full of fun spy gadgets (my favorite being a tracker that can be blown from a pencil up to 20 feet away and feels like a mosquito bite when it penetrates the skin and enters the bloodstream), close calls, and surprises. GiGi makes some mistakes, but she has a great team to back her up – and hey, we all make mistakes, right? The point is to learn from them and move on.

Another great action filled spy novel! Don't forget to comment on this review for an extra entry to my contest to win a signed copy of the book.

6 comments:

Chelsie said...

Haven't read any spy novels other than the Gallagher Girls novels by Ally Carter (which were amazing) but this does sound intriguing.

Ruth King said...

I'm really enjoying your reviews for this series.

I'm cartwheel-challenged as well.

Linda said...

sounds like James Bond!

Chick Lit Teens said...

Great review. I love Shannon's books ^^

Liviania said...

I love wacky spy gadgets.

Anonymous said...

Not sure which is worse - a mosquito bite or someone shooting a tracker into you that feels like a mosquito bite. Does it itch I wonder?