Trust No One
The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers #5
by Linda Sue Park

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade mystery, adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Maze of Bones.

Amy and Dan Cahill continue to jump through hoops for their enemy, Vesper One, trying to save the lives of their abducted friends and family members. Meanwhile, the in the Cahills’ inner circle will be exposed.

I kinda don’t know where to begin with this review. The story really ramps up in this penultimate book, and yet at the same time, it’s still stagnant in some ways. The fact that my synopses for these books basically always have some version of “Amy and Dan continue doing Vesper One’s bidding to try to save the lives of their hostage loved ones…” means that there’s not a whole lot of variation in the plots. And what they’re doing for the Vespers is always stealing something that’s priceless or super heavily guarded or just missing from history. I will say, though, the historical treasure involved in this book was really interesting. I was curious enough to look it up online and learn more about it.

I mentioned before that this series is a bit darker than the original, and that is especially true when you consider the body count to this point. Not that no one died in the original series, but here it seems like a Cahill or Cahill ally dies every book. I’m not a huge fan of that, especially considering who some of the characters are that are dying, some that I really like. Some of the danger elements in this book seem a little forced and unnecessary, which is the main reason for my lower star rating. There are some explanations given in this book as well as some questions left open still for the final in the series. I have my own theories as well, including a counter theory to one made by Dan near the end of this book. Then the book ends on a major cliffhanger, and I have high hopes for the last book (while also being trepidatious, since it’s written by an author brand new to this series and has quite a few loose ends to tie up).

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