The Peak (Spy Academy #1) by Jack Heath

Title: The Peak (Spy Academy #1)

Author: Jack Heath

Genre: Spy

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st February 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 288

Price: $17.99

Synopsis: After thwarting a robbery, Nolan Hawker is invited to the world’s most dangerous school. At The Peak, he learns to crack codes, fly planes and deceive enemies so he can someday infiltrate the deadly anarchist group known as Swarm. But someone at the Peak secretly works for Swarm, and they have a plan the kind no one walks away from. Can Nolan find the traitor before it’s too late?

About the Author

Jack Heath is the pen name of a multi-award-winning Australian author. His mission is to create books that inspire a love of reading in children and adults.

Born in Melbourne in 1985, Jack started writing his first novel in Canberra, while studying at Lyneham High School and working at a fish and chip shop in Dickson. He submitted the manuscript to a publisher at age seventeen, and the book became his first international bestseller.

In 2009 Jack was named the ACT Young Australian of the Year. He took various other jobs bass guitar tutor, e-commerce call centre worker, TV salesperson, ghost-writer and bookseller before quitting to write full-time in 2017.

His forty books have sold half a million copies in nine languages. His first crime thriller, Hangman, was voted one of the 100 best books of all time (twice).

Jack lives with his wife and their children in Gungahlin, on Ngunnawal/Ngambri land.

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Nolan Hawker has just started at his new school, Coppins Crossing Public School when he thwarts a robbery at the school – the impetus for Nolan’s invitation to an exclusive spy school in an undisclosed location in the middle of a mountainous peak that is filled with danger at every turn. Soon, Nolan is whisked away from the caravan he lives in with his mum, on a strange journey through land and sea to get to The Peak, an academy for spies in training. Here, he learns how to crack codes, fly planes, and deceive enemies, as well as read people – all so he can join the elite ranks of the spy network who are trying to take down the anarchist group known as Swarm.

But Nolan is in danger – someone at The Peak is a double agent, working with Swarm, and planning to take down The Peak – but Nolan is getting in the way and asking too many questions, being too observant and getting close to working out what is going on. And the plan the double agent has in place could destroy so much and leave nobody to walk away from things. It’s up to Nolan to find the traitor before it’s too late.

Jack Heath’s books are filled with twists and surprises, and often involve a mystery – whether it is his middle grade short stories, his adult crime thrillers, and everything else he has written including this new upper middle grade to lower young adult series, Spy Academy. Like his adult books, there is a threat, but it is dialled down for the audience it is aimed at though still something that will keep readers on the edge of their seats as they try to work out what is going on and who wants Nolan out – and why. Questions are raised throughout the book, and hints dropped about Swarm and previous students, whilst the threat of having your memories wiped and altered if you tell anyone outside about the Peak or don’t follow the rules hangs over all the students. Nolan and his friends are a diverse cast of characters from around the world who speak different languages, come from different countries, are different races and ethnicities, or who are disabled and use assistive devices – ensuring that there is as much representation as possible in a world seen through Nolan’s eyes. As Nolan navigates his new world, he learns that his natural instincts are just as important as what The Peak is going to teach him.

In true Jack Heath style, he leaves nothing to chance, with every aspect tightly planned and created, down to the red herrings peppered throughout the book designed to mislead Nolan and the reader. Jack has also created a couple of puzzles and quizzes at the back of the book, so make sure you pay attention to what is going on so you can solve them! They’re designed to test you, and see if you would survive the training at The Peak. Collect the clues like Easter Eggs as you read – that is, if you don’t get so sucked into the story that you don’t notice them at first! This is entirely possible and means the book can be read on several levels – one for the story and another as a study in observation and clue collecting skills. It is a book that showcases friendship and trust, and high stakes situations that kids can imagine themselves doing, or the things they would love to do if they were allowed.

In this high stakes, high action, and high threat novel, Nolan’s time at The Peak – and the series that readers aged ten and over will find engaging and intriguing, and much like the Minutes of Danger series, is a great introduction to Jack Heath and his tension-filled writing that keeps you reading long after you’ve had to turn the lights out. Finding out what Nolan is up against and how he will face it is the key aspect of this novel filled with intrigue and mystery. Another fabulous Jack Heath book.