Evil Genius

In Evil Genius, Catherine Jinks spins a straw of a boy who was raised wrong, but might just turn out right.
      Cadel Piggot has always been told "Whatever you do--don't get caught."  So, by the age of six he has shut down the Sydney railway system for an afternoon, and caused an impenetrable traffic jam in the same place at the same time.  Obsessed with systems and anything that will ruin people's lives through not-quite-illegal methods, Cadel quickly climbs through the grades, with the encouragement of his psychologist, Thaddus Roth, and his imprisoned father, Phineas Darkkon.  A chance meeting with a woman over the Internet and the enrollment into a prestigious collage for criminals may but a wrinkle in Phineas's and Thaddus's plans, as Cadel learns what it's like to think for himself. 

First it was Harry Potter.  After that came the deluge:  Falcon Quinn, Otto Malpense, Charlie Benjamin, Percy Jackson, and countless others.  What do these boys and the names of their school all have in common?  They are all the focus of stories that tell a tale of a powerful hero (or heroine) with powers of the supernatural who went to a special school to get trained in the art of using those powers to achieve good and make the world a better place.  Should we add another name to those ranks:  Cadel Piggot?  Not so much.
       Why?  Well, that would give half the book away.  And it was a very good part of the book, trust me.  But one reason might be what Thaddus has told Cadel since he was small "Whatever you do--don't get caught."  You generally don't find that in a lot of books.  Small wonder why, right?  (The adults don't want us breaking the laws uncontrollably.)  And Cadel does whatever he wants and he never gets caught.  It's very . . . impressive, to say the least.  I might be the slightest bit jealous. 
       And all of the teachers in Axis Institute are also known criminals, another angle that is very interesting.  Which school hires teachers wanted for fraud, and who-knows-what-else?  The whole set-up is very interesting.  From the Virus, a computer-hacking genius who Cadel often takes advantage to, to Tracey Lane, a has-been news anchor who's quite the player. 
       In fact, the whole atmosphere of Axis Institute is very interesting.  In the book series HIVE (Higher Institute for Villainous Education, James Walden), the criminals are all very friendly with each other, to some degree.  The staff gets along well, for the most part, and the students befriend each other and whatnot.  But in Axis, the staff hate each other and spy on each other, and the students try to kill each other.  It's just . . . well, it's fantastic if you're slightly crazed like moi, and a bit creepy if you're the sane sort of person. 
         What else can I tell you other than that Catherine Jinks bamboozles you with her cleverness and the way she makes Cadel smarter than any known human being, while still keeping him very human?  He changes a bit fast, Cadel does.  From a criminal to a kid, very quickly.  But I suppose getting kidnapped does that to you. (Oh, wait, sorry . . .) 
         This is one of those books that I don't really have anything critical to say about.  It's over 500 pages, though, in paperback, and the real action doesn't start until about page 300, and there is some stuff that you could guess all along while it takes a while for Cadel to figure out.  Other than that, I say that you take your first plunge into true villainy in the works of Ms. Jinks, and maybe it will become clear that while we might all be bad, we're bad because me make the conscious choice to be.  Or something like that. 
         P.S.  The book's setting is in Australia.  I was having trouble figuring out whether it was in England or in Australia, but when I saw the word "Sydney", I figured it out.  Just so you go into it relatively unconfused.