Charlie Thorne and the Lost City

Stuart Gibbs's Charlie Thorne and the Lost City is a code-cracking spy adventure for 10 year olds that sends a twelve-year-old genius after a treasure Charles Darwin may have found.

What happens

It opens in 1835. Darwin staggers back to the Beagle in the middle of the night, months late, in rags and covered in sores. An angry mob is right behind him. He's carrying a rough wooden chest, and Captain FitzRoy is horrified by what's inside it.

Now it's the present day and Charlie is living on a remote island in the Galápagos under a made-up name. She surfs with hammerhead sharks swimming under her board and volunteers at a giant tortoise breeding centre. She'd very much like nobody to find her.

Then a woman from the Darwin Research Station turns up on her porch. A huge old tortoise has died, and scratched into the underside of its shell is a message signed C. Darwin. "The Greatest Treasure in Human History" runs round the edge. The rest is a riddle that doesn't make sense.

Who could resist that? Charlie certainly can't (although she's got a couple of other reasons for leaving town in a hurry).

A speedboat has arrived, and some men are asking around for her. Charlie's bag is already packed. She leaves a nasty surprise under the kitchen sink and goes out of the bedroom window. Then we meet the Russian spy who's been sent to grab her.

It's a proper page-turner. The chapters swap between Charlie, the CIA and the spy, so you always know a little more than she does.

There's a LOT of real science in here too. Why sharks mostly leave surfers alone, why tortoises on different islands grew different shells, and why the Galápagos has penguins. It never feels like a lesson because Charlie just can't help noticing things.

It's worth knowing that this is the second Charlie Thorne book, and the story carries straight on from the first. Starting with Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation makes far more sense.

The opening has some darker moments too. Eleven of Darwin's men are dead (we're told, not shown), and Darwin and the captain talk about the local people in ways that are plainly racist. Charlie's trap blows a policeman across a kitchen. He's fine apart from his eyebrows, but it's a big bang.

If your reader is happy with peril and loves puzzles and animals, this is a great pick.

What to read next

And if the Darwin and Beagle side of things grabs them, Darwin's Dragons is a brilliant next stop. Syms is Mr Darwin's young assistant on the Galápagos, riding giant tortoises with him, until a storm tips them both into the sea.