The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages

Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages is a clever, funny adventure for 9 year olds that gets the old gang back together for one more fight.

What happens

It's worth saying straight away that this isn't the place to start. Years have gone by since the Society's first mission. Reynie, Sticky and Kate are practically grown up now, and Reynie has a stack of university letters on his desk that he still hasn't answered.

Then the worst news arrives. A gang of villains called the Ten Men (so called because they know ten ways to hurt you) have broken out of a prison that was meant to be escape-proof. Now thirteen of them are hiding somewhere in Stonetown. Everyone is fairly sure they've come to free Mr Curtain.

The opening chapter is a proper treat. Reynie is sitting at his desk listening to an unfamiliar footstep in the hall, and in walks a grubby five-year-old called Tai. He knows everything about the Society. Nobody knows how he got in.

Then Kate turns up. Not through the door. She comes in by parachute, straight across the rooftop where Sticky has left rows of very dangerous chemicals out on tables, with her falcon diving along behind her. You can probably guess how that goes!

And finally there's Constance, the telepath, who is now a very cross girl with scarlet hair and one of Mr Benedict's old suits (she says she needs it to keep calm). She's also started writing rude poems again, which Tai thinks is hilarious.

What makes it such a lovely read is how much these friends clearly love each other. They tease Sticky about his stylish new glasses. They share sandwiches on the floor. But underneath the jokes there's a real sadness, because they're all about to go off in different directions, and nobody wants to be the one who ends it.

The puzzles and the danger are there too, of course. Reynie is the kind of hero who notices things, and you get to watch him working it all out.

What to read next

If you've got a reader who loved the earlier adventures, this will feel like meeting old friends. And if they're after another very clever child up against a shady organisation, The Genius Experiment is in the library too. Max is twelve, lives above a horse stable in New York and secretly sits in on university lectures.