Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks

From the Publisher

Cadel Piggott has a genius IQ and a fascination with systems of all kinds. At seven, he was illegally hacking into computers. Now he’s fourteen and studying for his World Domination degree, taking classes like embezzlement, misinformation, forgery, and infiltration at the institute founded by criminal mastermind Dr. Phineas Darkkon. Although Cadel may be advanced beyond his years, at heart he’s a lonely kid. When he falls for the mysterious and brilliant Kay-Lee, he begins to question the moral implications of his studies for the first time. But is it too late to stop Dr. Darkkon from carrying out his evil plot?

An engrossing thriller with darkness and humor, freaks and geeks, Evil Genius explores the fine line between good and evil in a strange world of manipulations and subterfuge where nothing is as it seems.

Publishers Weekly

With a series of breakneck twists and turns, Jinks's (the Pagan Chronicles) latest novel follows Cadel Piggott, a seven-year-old Australian boy with an incredible mind and a proclivity toward mischief: "He loved systems: phone systems, electrical systems, car engines, complicated traffic intersections." Following a string of disasters, which Cadel engineers (e.g., hacking into the city's power grid), his desperate adoptive parents take him to a psychologist, Dr. Thaddeus Roth. But instead of refocusing Cadel on more positive activities, Dr. Roth encourages the boy to develop increasingly destructive plans, such as orchestrating massive traffic jams and manipulating his classmates' emotions so that they turn on one another. Dr. Roth also stuns Cadel by revealing that he is employed by Cadel's birth father, Dr. Phineas Darkkon, a criminal mastermind serving a life sentence. From prison, Dr. Darkkon established the Axis Institute for the world's genetically talented and criminally inclined. Drs. Roth and Darkkon convince Cadel to join its small freshman class, and Cadel slowly uncovers a conspiracy of lies and betrayals that leave no aspect of his life untouched. Jinks has created an intricate, well-constructed and layered reality in this hefty novel, and as the complex deceptions that have shaped Cadel's life come to light, his emotional unraveling and awakening will likely engross readers. Ages 12-up. (May)

Children's Literature

Cadel Piggott is no Artemis Fowl. He is one young genius with a nearly unfixable moral conundrum. Raised by foster parents who put Harry Potter's to shame, Cadel's only support comes from his psychologist, Thaddeus Roth—and Thaddeus approves Cadel's computer hacking and other ethically questionable pursuits. Such is the status quo as Cadel reaches the age of fourteen and completes high school. Next comes the boy's introduction to his real father, the jailed-for-life criminal mastermind Phineas Darkkon. With genes like these, Cadel barely blinks as he is enrolled in the studies of the Axis Institute: Basic Lying, Pure Evil, Embezzlement, Contagion, Assassination. His one outlet is Kay-Lee, an e-mail friend and math genius whose pure goodness offers options Cadel has never guessed existed. The Australian author Jinks explores her outrageous premise with complete elan. The novel is a no-holds-barred roller coaster ride through Cadel's mind as the young man—never a child—wakes to the devious tricks that have been perpetrated upon him. Can his barren, trustless soul believe in anyone or anything? Who? What? The book is almost impossible to put down. It is a brilliant tour de force that never cops out, never succumbs to a happy ending. While it raises its issues on a grand guignol scale, the issues are valid.

VOYA

Imagine Harry Potter's Hogwarts in reverse-a school that teaches youth how to do as many evil acts as they can manage in order to contribute to World Domination-specialties accepted. That thought is the premise for this novel, originally published in Australia. Cadel Piggott is only seven when the story opens, but readers already know that his life is not going to be typical. After all, he is the only child of Dr. Phineas Darkkon, the most evil man in the world, and he is a genius. What better combination? By the time he is fourteen, Cadel is so enmeshed in a world of manipulation and deception that to get out, he must perform some of the very acts of evil that he wants to leave behind. In the end, he must even hurt people whom he wants to protect. Along the way, he will learn how to hack into any computer system in the world, become a master of deception and disguises, beat any legal system he encounters, and be confused on at least three occasions about who his parents really are. All that is easy compared to trying to figure out how to bring the evil empire of his father(s) tumbling down and escape with his life. This book will appeal to younger teens who can see the possibilities for adventure through the eyes of the bad guys. Although Cadel himself will in the end deny evil, he learns that no one remains untouched by it.

KLIATT

To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, May 2007: Cadel is a young genius with a particular gift for deciphering—and destroying—systems of all kinds. Encouraged by his psychologist (who turns out to have an agenda of his own), Cadel enrolls at age 14 in the Axis Institute for World Domination, designed to instruct students in everything evil, from computer hacking to embezzlement to poisons. Few students or even professors survive the lessons, especially once Cadel puts his mind to bringing down the Institute by sowing mistrust. Then Cadel comes to realize how he himself has been manipulated, and with the help of a computer pal named Kay-Lee, he tries to break free of the only world he's ever known. The great title and intriguing concept of a school that teaches how to wreak havoc may draw readers, but this is a rather lengthy tome, not an Artemis Fowl-like quick read. First published in Australia in 2005, some of the devices presented as futuristic, like a "computer phone," might seem laughably outdated to readers. Still, the dark humor and freakish characters (the student whose stench is so awful he has to wear a spaceman-like suit; the beautiful, devious, mind-reading twins) may grab fantasy readers with a cynical bent who are looking for something out of the ordinary. (A 2008 ALA Best Book for YAs.) Reviewer: Paula Rohrlick

Dylan ThomarieCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up
Cadel Piggott was hacking into computer systems by the time he was seven and causing all sorts of trouble by the time he fast-tracked through high school. At age 14, he is encouraged by his longtime "psychiatrist" to enroll in the Axis Institute. There, the classes include Misinformation, Disguise, Basic Lying, Embezzlement, and Explosives. Cadel settles into his first semester of studies, but soon begins to suspect that something is very wrong here. Through Partner Post, his online matching service experiment, he receives a cryptic warning from one of his subscribers, and he begins to make plans to investigate his teachers. A trail of hacked information takes him to places he doesn't want to go. A flowing and coherent style leads readers into the thriller that Evil Genius becomes. Although background information dominates the beginning of the book, the plot quickly picks up its dark and dangerous pace as Cadel moves through his fear and realization of what is happening around him. As an alternative thriller that shows the good side of evil, Jinks sets up a compelling world of lies, deceit, and betrayal that will have lovers of mystery or computer-based investigation on the edge as they devour this page-turner. A sequel is planned.

Kirkus Reviews

Carried along by much peeling back of layers of deception and repeated thickenings of plot, this hefty but engrossingly complex tale features a young super-brain being groomed for world domination. Under the tutelage of his mysterious psychologist Thaddeus, 13-year-old Cadel subtly engineered spectacular traffic jams in Sydney, caused all of his high school class to fail their finals and similar exploits. He now enters the exclusive Axis Institute, where innocuously named courses like "Coping Skills" and "Accounting" turn out to be tutorials in basic lying, embezzlement and such. Determined to develop a predictive program for all human behavior, he discovers himself enmeshed in multiple webs of intrigue, which, along with his own efforts to manipulate faculty and fellow students, result in an escalating array of fatalities. Gradually, he begins to wonder whether he's really cut out for the role of evil overlord. Along with keeping the suspense expertly tuned and stirring in any number of stunning revelations, Jinks fills out the cast with brilliantly conceived friends and adversaries. His emotional maturity realistically lagging behind his intellectual development, Cadel rides right up there with Artemis Fowl as a sympathetic anti-villain. (Fiction. 12-15)

What People Are Saying

School Library Journal
* “As an alternative thriller that shows the good side of evil, Jinks sets up a compelling world of lies, deceit, and betrayal that will have lovers of mystery or computer-based investigation on the edge as they devour this page-turner.”--School Library Journal 7/1/07 (starred)

Publishers Weekly
 * "Jinks has created an intricate, well-constructed and layered reality in this hefty novel, and as the complex deceptions that have shaped Cadel's life come to light, his emotional unraveling and awakening will likely engross readers." --Publishers Weekly (April 2, 2007 - starred review)

Kirkus
* "Carried along by much peeling back of layers of deception and repeated thickenings of plot, this hefty but engrossingly complex tale features a young super-brain being groomed for world domination...Jinks fills out the cast with brilliantly conceived friends and adversaries.  His emotional maturity realistically lagging behind his intellectual development Cadel ides right up there with Artemis Fowl as a sympathetic anti-villain." --Kirkus Reviews (April 1, 2007 - starred review)

Details from Seller

• ISBN: 0152059881
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Pub. Date: May 2007
• Condition:

Comments from the Seller: Very minimal damage to the cover (no holes or tears, only minimal scuff marks) , in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, minimal to no highlighting/under

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One
 
Cadel Piggott was just seven years old when he first met Thaddeus Roth. 
           Dr. Roth worked in a row house near Sydney Harbor. The house was three stories high, its garden shrouded by a great many damp, dark trees. There was moss growing on its sandstone window ledges. Curtains drawn across all its windows gave it a secretive air. Its front fence was made of iron, with a spike on top of each post; beside the creaking gate was a brass sign bearing Dr. Roth’s name and qualifications.
 
           “That’s it,” said Mrs. Piggott. “Number twenty-nine.”
 
           “Well, we can’t stop here,” her husband replied. “No parking.”
 
           “I told you to park back there.”
 
           “It doesn’t matter. We’ll try down this street.”
 
           “Stuart, that’s a one-way street.”
 
           “Dammit!”
 
           “I knew we’d never find a space. Not around this area.”
            “Just shut up for a minute, will you?”
 
           Mr. and Mrs. Piggott were not Cadel’s real parents. They had adopted him when he was not quite two years old. Mrs. Piggott was thin and blond, Mr. Piggott fat and gray. They almost never agreed about anything, but that didn’t matter because they almost never met. Their busy schedules kept them away from home, and one another, a good deal of the time.
 
           At the suggestion of the police, however, they had both agreed to attend this interview.
 
           “We’re going to be late,” Mrs. Piggott warned her husband after they had circled the block four times in Mr. Piggott’s big, gleaming Mercedes-Benz. “Just let us out, for god’s sake.”
 
           “I’ll park here.”
 
           “Stuart, you’ll never fit in there!”
 
           “Watch me.”
 
           Cadel said nothing. He sat on the backseat, dressed in his good brown cords and a lamb’s-wool sweater, staring out the window at Dr. Roth’s house. He didn’t like the look of it. He thought it had a murky, ominous appearance.
 
           “I don’t want to go,” he said flatly when Mrs. Piggott got out and opened the door beside him.
 
            “I know, honey, but we have to.”
 
           “No we don’t,” Cadel retorted.
ily: 'Times New Roman'" 
           “Yes we do.”
 
           “There were no formal charges,” Cadel pointed out, in his high, clear voice. “It was just a suggestion.”
 
           “That’s right,” said Mr. Piggott, yanking Cadel out of the back of the car. “And when the police make a suggestion, you always follow it. Rule number one.”
 
           “Be careful, Stuart, you’ll wreck his clothes.”
 
           Cadel was so small—even for a seven-year-old—that he didn’t stand a chance against Mr. Piggott. Though he dragged his feet and hung off his adoptive parents’ hands like a sack of melons, he was forced across the street and through the front gate of number twenty-nine. The path beyond the gate was mushy with wet leaves. There was a rich smell of decay. The door knocker was a ring in the mouth of a snarling lion’s head, painted black, like the rest of the ironwork.
 
           Cadel noted with interest the switchboard near the door. It was obviously ancient, full of porcelain fuses and dial meters. The Piggotts’ own house was only three years old, with a state-of-the-art electrical system, so Cadel was fascinated by this dusty old relic.
 
           But he was not permitted to gaze at it for long.
 
           “Come on,” Mr. Piggott barked. “The door’s open.” And he pushed against it, causing it to swing back and reveal a long, dark hallway carpeted with dingy Persian rugs. About halfway down this hallway, a staircase the color of walnut swept up to the next floor. There were several doors to the right of the front entrance, but only the closest stood ajar.
 
           “Hello!” said Mr. Piggott, marching straight through it. He wasn’t a man who normally waited for anything. “We’ve an appointment with Dr. Roth. For ten thirty.”
 
          Gripped firmly around the wrist, Cadel had no choice but to follow Mr. Piggott. He found himself in a reception area: two rooms divided by a pair of folding mahogany doors. There were two marble fireplaces and two chandeliers. Cadel noticed cobwebs on the chandeliers.
 
           A woman sat behind an antique desk.
 
           “Good morning,” she said calmly. “What name, please?”
 
           “Piggott,” Mr. Piggott replied, in pompous tones. “Stuart, Lanna, and Cadel.” He looked surprised when the woman rose, revealing herself to be almost as wide and as tall as he was. She had a broad, square face and small blue eyes. She was wearing a suit the color of dried blood.
 
           “I’ll just go and tell Dr. Roth that you’ve arrived,” she declared, before lumbering out of the room. Cadel didn’t watch her go. He was more interested in the computer that she’d left behind, with its alluring glow and contented hum. The screen saver was one that he’d never seen before: a pattern of falling dominoes.
 
           “Don’t even think about it,” Stuart rasped when he realized what was attracting Cadel’s attention. “Sit down. Over there.”
 
           “Look, honey, there are toys for you to play with,” Lanna said, nudging a large basket with the toe of her expensive Italian shoe. Sulkily, Cadel eyed the basket’s contents. He was used to the broken activity centers and torn books offered for the amusement of younger patients at his local doctor’s office and wasn’t hopeful about the distractions provided here.
 
           But to his astonishment, he quickly spied an old voltmeter, together with a book on flies, a plastic human skull (life-sized), a Rubik’s Cube, and a Frankenstein mask. Further investigation uncovered a dead spider embedded in a resin paperweight, a shark’s tooth, a Galaxy Warrior complete with Thermopuncher torpedoes, and a very curious fragment of puzzle bearing the picture of a staring, bloodshot eye over a set of claw marks.
 
           He was puzzling over this macabre image when the sound of heavy footsteps reached his ears. It seemed that Dr. Roth’s receptionist was returning, clumping down the stairs like someone wearing ski boots. Lanna, who had flung herself onto an armchair, immediately jumped to her feet.
           Stuart glared at the door.
 
           “Dr. Roth will see you now,” the receptionist announced when she finally appeared. “You can go straight up.”
 
           Stuart and Lanna exchanged glances.
 
           “Are you sure?” Lanna objected. “I mean, does he want to discuss things in front of Cadel?”
 
           “Oh yes,” the receptionist declared firmly. Something about her voice made Cadel look up. He studied her with care, from the top of her permed head to the soles of her brown shoes. She smiled in response, and the Piggotts all recoiled.
 
           Her mouth looked as if it belonged to an older, harsher century.
 
           “Why are your teeth black?” Cadel wanted to know.
 
           “Why are your teeth white?” the receptionist responded, wending her way back to her desk. Lanna snatched at Cadel’s hand and hustled him out of the room. She and her husband whispered together as they climbed the stairs, which creaked and groaned beneath them.
 
           “Stuart, what was the matter with . . . ?”
 
           “I don’t know.”
 
           “Do you think this is a good idea?”
 
           “Course it is.”
 
           “But what about that woman? Her teeth?”
 
           Stuart shrugged. They had reached a landing, but it wasn’t the right one. From above their heads, a voice said, “Up here.”
 
           A man was draped over the second-floor banisters. He was tall and thin and wore a tweed jacket. His thick, dark hair was going gray.
 
           “That’s the bathroom,” he remarked in a soothing voice with a cultured English accent. “I’m afraid my office is at the top, here.”
 
           “Dr. Roth?” said Stuart.
 
           “Yes, indeed.”
 
           “We’re a bit late,” Lanna offered a trifle breathlessly. “No parking.”
 
           “You should turn that front yard of yours into a parking lot,” Stuart added, climbing the last flight of stairs. Gracefully, Dr. Roth moved to push open the door of his office.
 
           “I would,” he said, “if the local council would let me. Heritage listing, I’m afraid.”
 
         Stuart grunted. Lanna smiled a meaningless social smile. They both passed into Dr. Roth’s office ahead of Cadel, who stopped on the threshold. He gazed up at Thaddeus.
 
           “Why does she have black teeth?” Cadel inquired.
 
           “Wilfreda? I’m not sure,” Thaddeus replied. “Poor dental hygiene, I should think. Her parents had very strange ideas about diet and doctors. Maybe they didn’t believe in toothbrushes, either.” He cocked his head. “So you’re Cadel.”
 
           “Yes.”
 
           “Come in, Cadel.”
 
            Dr. Roth’s office surprised Cadel, because it was full of modern furniture and computer equipment. There were a number of glossy cabinets, some full of filing drawers, some with cables running out of them. Cadel’s eyes gleamed when he spotted those cables.
 
           “Sit down, please.” Dr. Roth gestured at a cluster of couches placed between his desk and a pair of French doors. Lanna chose the crimson couch, settling down onto it very carefully, her bare knees drawn together. Stuart dropped into his seat like a stone.
Copyright © Catherine Jinks, 2005
 
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Evil Genius

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