The 39 Clues, Book 11 by Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman, and Jude Watson

The kids and I took about 7 months to work our way through The 39 Clues series (or at least this initial 11-book portion of it), and we found Vespers Rising to be a fitting capstone to this wonderful, joint-effort series. It’s not what we expected, and that’s generally a good thing.

Having recently finished the 10th and most exciting book thus far, Into the Gauntlet, we weren’t sure what more the Cahill children had to experience in their hunt for the 39 clues. Like with many good series before it, the authors chose to answer readers’ questions not by introducing an expert who can reveal the story’s many secrets through dialogue but by taking us back in time to watch he mysterious history in action. This book is laid out in 4 parts, 3 of which are “prequels” that allows us to experience the Cahill’s history as it’s unfolded through the centuries.

Part 1: Gideon Cahill, 1507 by Rick Riordan

The author of the series’ first installment, Maze of Bones (and all of the unrelated Percy Jackson books) opens this final book by taking us back to the very beginning, to Gideon Cahill. Father to Thomas, Jane, Katherine, and Luke (the parents of the eventual Cahill lines that fight for power throughout the series), Gideon is working on a serum to help cure the Black Plague that’s ravaging the continent. When his financier, Lord Damien Vesper, seeks to steal the serum for its power, Gideon disperses a quarter of the secret ingredients to each of his children and tells them to flee just before he dies in a fiery blast. The children separate, blaming each other for their father’s death, fleeing with their own powerful yet incomplete vials of serum. Meanwhile none are aware that their mother, Olivia, has also fled and survived with her undisclosed pregnancy, the fifth Cahill child named Madeleine.

Part 2: Madeleine Cahill, 1526 by Peter Lerangis

This secret baby grows up with her mother as an alchemist, while Lord Damien Vesper hunts them down. Madeleine tries to reconnect with her brother Luke but is mistrusted. When Vesper attacks, Madeleine is blamed, beginning a centuries long warning: “Beware the Madrigals.”

Part 3: Grace Cahill, 1942 by Gordon Korman

In this section, we get to meet the children’s grandmother who seemed to start it all in The Maze of Bones, only here she’s just a 14-year-old girl herself. We get to meet her siblings, Beatrice and Fisk, both familiar shadows of their later selves, and we get to see young Grace in action during World War II. Here she fights her way to Casa Blanca to meet General Patton in her search for a gold ring—a ring unmentioned thus far throughout the series yet a ring that ties all four of these stories together.

Part 4: Dan and Amy Cahill, the Present by Jude Watson

In this final part, we meet our favorite kids and their now-family au pair, Nellie, post-adventure. They’re back in their grandmother’s house, which they’d inherited. They’re back in school, bored out of their gourds and missing the action they’d experienced over the previous months. This short section is exciting, and it whets our appetites for whatever new adventures await the kids. We’ve finished these 11 books, sure, but we’re definitely wanting to keep the fun going!

Overall, this was a very informative book, albeit a little confusing to my kids at first. They haven’t been tracking the mystery as much as the adventure, so they didn’t care as much as I did about the historical foundations for everything we’ve read thus far. Still, each of the parts contained some high-paced adventure in their own rights, so the kids were entertained, though at times they were a bit lost as to who these characters were and why they mattered.

I’m looking forward to the next chunks of books in the overall 39 Clues series. From what I can gather, the remaining books in the series seem to go as follows:

• Cahills vs. Vespers (6 books)
• Unstoppable (4 books)
• Doublecross (4 books)
• Cahill Files: Operation Trinity (1 book)
• Superspecial: Outbreak (1 book)

Perhaps there’s more to it than that. I’m sure I’ll understand it better as we read, but for now all that matters is that we try to get our hands on the first book in the Cahills vs. Vespers series, The Medusa Plot. Can’t wait!

©2024 E.T.

Read More from The 39 Clues Series:

1. The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan (2008)
2. One False Note by Gordon Korman (2008)
3. The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis (2009)
4. Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson (2009)
5. The Black Circle by Patrick Carmen (2009)
6. In Too Deep by Jude Watson (2009)
7. The Viper’s Nest by Peter Lerangis (2010)
8. The Emperor’s Code by Gordan Korman (2010)
9. Storm Warning by Linda Sue Park (2010)
10. Into the Gauntlet by Margaret Peterson Haddix (2010)
11. Vespers Rising by Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordan Korman, and Jude Watson (2011)