Action & Adventure
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Spy School Project X
In the tenth book in the New York Times bestselling Spy School series, Ben Ripley races against time and across state lines-by car, train, boat, and plane-to avoid his new cyber enemies and track down Murray Hill.
Ben Ripley's longtime nemesis, Murray Hill, has put a price on Ben's head and accused him of being at the center of a conspiracy on the internet. Now Ben finds himself in his greatest danger yet, on the run from both assassins and conspiracy theorists.
Ben must find Murray before his machinations catch up to Ben-but with so much at stake, even some of Ben's most trusted friends might not be at the top of their game, leaving Ben to be tested like never before.
Ben Ripley's longtime nemesis, Murray Hill, has put a price on Ben's head and accused him of being at the center of a conspiracy on the internet. Now Ben finds himself in his greatest danger yet, on the run from both assassins and conspiracy theorists.
Ben must find Murray before his machinations catch up to Ben-but with so much at stake, even some of Ben's most trusted friends might not be at the top of their game, leaving Ben to be tested like never before.
Readers Top Reviews
ECFRayMonkey
I have read every spy school book in the series and this is easily one of the best. Amazing Book!!!!!!!
Samantha Foltz
I got it for my daughter and she read it in a day she loved it and said it was the best so far in the series
Tyler Fackrell
It is one of the best books ever and part of one of the best series ever. I have read the Spy School series time and time again, with the new book in the series, the series has upgraded.
I don’t know how he does it but for some reason I can’t find anything too bad about his books, like I don’t know what he does because for someone reason the book is always good. In other words, great book I loved it
JBas
As Stuart Gibbs seeks out to lengthen the Spy School series, he does not fail to include a humor, action, and romance harmony that is the core of the whole series. Although Erica and Ben are dating in this latest release, it isn’t obsessively the main topic of the novel (which some authors like it to take over the book) and creates more room for other legit qualities you find in many masterpieces. Gibbs never disappoints when it comes to humor, and you can see that all throughout the series he inserts it at exactly the right time for a hilarious joke. SPOILER ALERT: it was fun to see Erica’s grandmother hop into the spotlight, as she delivered a extra layer of humor, and even more so when she was around Cyrus. Conspiracy theories play a big part in this book, which Gibbs did well to identify and point out how crazy and popular some ideas are online sometimes. All together this is an excellent read and adds on another adventure to the Spy School series.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1: Self-Preservation
1 SELF-PRESERVATION
Lyman Gymnasium
The CIA's Academy of Espionage
Washington, DC
June 11
1200 hours
I had an emergency meeting with the principal.
As if finals at spy school weren't stressful enough.
I used to go to a normal middle school, so I'm aware that exam weeks everywhere are difficult, but ours was brutal. Not just mentally-but often physically as well.
For example, an algebra exam in regular middle school might have a few questions on working out parabolas-while an algebra exam at spy school entailed having live grenades lobbed at you. The grenades were loaded with paint instead of explosives, so they would merely color you blue, rather than blow your limbs off, but still, the test was so traumatic, it frequently left students gibbering in fear. I'm lucky enough to be gifted in mathematics, and yet, there's a very big difference between doing a complex equation in a nice, quiet classroom as opposed to a muddy foxhole with paint-filled explosives raining down on you.
And that was one of the easier exams.
The most difficult was in Advanced Self-Preservation. It also happened to be the most painful.
Well, it wasn't painful if you were good at self-preservation. In that case, the exam could be rather hazardous for your instructor. But I wasn't good at self-preservation at all.
Everyone has their strengths. Mine happen to be more cerebral. I'm quite skilled at deducing what bad guys are plotting and then figuring out how to defeat them. This wasn't only in a classroom setting: I had faced actual bad guys a surprising number of times, given that I was only in my second year of spy school. Due to some extraordinary circumstances, I had managed to prevent evil organizations from dismantling the planet's electrical grid, destroying the Panama Canal, assassinating the president of the United States, and melting Antarctica. And that was just in the spring semester.
Unfortunately, at spy school, we didn't get good grades for successful missions. In fact, we still had to make up the homework we missed while we were away.
To be honest, I've gotten much better at self-preservation since coming to spy school. I could probably defeat the average person in a fight. But when you're a spy, you don't get attacked by average people. You have trained killers come after you. And so, to properly prepare us for the field, the exams in Advanced Self-Preservation were extremely difficult.
The final involved a little-known Tibetan style of martial arts known as Nook-Bhan-San, which loosely translates as "Wow, That Really Hurts." Each student had to fight one of the academy's many martial arts instructors. If we could defeat them, we would get an A. Personally, I felt that was highly unlikely. The best I could hope for was a D, which involved losing the fight, but not getting sent to the school infirmary.
I would have been nervous enough about the self-preservation exam on a normal day, but the impending meeting with the principal made everything worse. The principal had two basic personalities, angry and incompetent, and he tended to swing back and forth between them without any warning at all, so being with him was never a pleasant experience. He also had said that my life depended on this meeting, which made me even more anxious.
Then, to top things off, Professor Crandall had been late for the exam. Crandall was an elderly and doddering instructor with a big secret; in truth, he was very aware and capable, but only pretended to be in decline to throw off his enemies. (I was one of the few people who knew this, having learned of it during my first mission, and had sworn not to tell anyone.) Crandall was exceptionally good at the doddering act, and his lectures were famous for being incredibly boring and only vaguely coherent. In his final class of the semester, he had rambled on for a half hour about how to protect yourself against Vikings, even though the last time they had been a threat was 1000 AD.
The exam took place in the school gymnasium. Two students at a time were paired with instructors to fight. Crandall sat in the stands, ostensibly watching the proceedings, although he seemed to keep nodding off. (Like I said, he was a very good actor.) Normally, I would have been in no rush to get my butt kicked, but I was hoping to go early so that I could still make my meeting with the principal.
Instead, I was placed in the final pairing.
By then, I knew there was very little ch...
1 SELF-PRESERVATION
Lyman Gymnasium
The CIA's Academy of Espionage
Washington, DC
June 11
1200 hours
I had an emergency meeting with the principal.
As if finals at spy school weren't stressful enough.
I used to go to a normal middle school, so I'm aware that exam weeks everywhere are difficult, but ours was brutal. Not just mentally-but often physically as well.
For example, an algebra exam in regular middle school might have a few questions on working out parabolas-while an algebra exam at spy school entailed having live grenades lobbed at you. The grenades were loaded with paint instead of explosives, so they would merely color you blue, rather than blow your limbs off, but still, the test was so traumatic, it frequently left students gibbering in fear. I'm lucky enough to be gifted in mathematics, and yet, there's a very big difference between doing a complex equation in a nice, quiet classroom as opposed to a muddy foxhole with paint-filled explosives raining down on you.
And that was one of the easier exams.
The most difficult was in Advanced Self-Preservation. It also happened to be the most painful.
Well, it wasn't painful if you were good at self-preservation. In that case, the exam could be rather hazardous for your instructor. But I wasn't good at self-preservation at all.
Everyone has their strengths. Mine happen to be more cerebral. I'm quite skilled at deducing what bad guys are plotting and then figuring out how to defeat them. This wasn't only in a classroom setting: I had faced actual bad guys a surprising number of times, given that I was only in my second year of spy school. Due to some extraordinary circumstances, I had managed to prevent evil organizations from dismantling the planet's electrical grid, destroying the Panama Canal, assassinating the president of the United States, and melting Antarctica. And that was just in the spring semester.
Unfortunately, at spy school, we didn't get good grades for successful missions. In fact, we still had to make up the homework we missed while we were away.
To be honest, I've gotten much better at self-preservation since coming to spy school. I could probably defeat the average person in a fight. But when you're a spy, you don't get attacked by average people. You have trained killers come after you. And so, to properly prepare us for the field, the exams in Advanced Self-Preservation were extremely difficult.
The final involved a little-known Tibetan style of martial arts known as Nook-Bhan-San, which loosely translates as "Wow, That Really Hurts." Each student had to fight one of the academy's many martial arts instructors. If we could defeat them, we would get an A. Personally, I felt that was highly unlikely. The best I could hope for was a D, which involved losing the fight, but not getting sent to the school infirmary.
I would have been nervous enough about the self-preservation exam on a normal day, but the impending meeting with the principal made everything worse. The principal had two basic personalities, angry and incompetent, and he tended to swing back and forth between them without any warning at all, so being with him was never a pleasant experience. He also had said that my life depended on this meeting, which made me even more anxious.
Then, to top things off, Professor Crandall had been late for the exam. Crandall was an elderly and doddering instructor with a big secret; in truth, he was very aware and capable, but only pretended to be in decline to throw off his enemies. (I was one of the few people who knew this, having learned of it during my first mission, and had sworn not to tell anyone.) Crandall was exceptionally good at the doddering act, and his lectures were famous for being incredibly boring and only vaguely coherent. In his final class of the semester, he had rambled on for a half hour about how to protect yourself against Vikings, even though the last time they had been a threat was 1000 AD.
The exam took place in the school gymnasium. Two students at a time were paired with instructors to fight. Crandall sat in the stands, ostensibly watching the proceedings, although he seemed to keep nodding off. (Like I said, he was a very good actor.) Normally, I would have been in no rush to get my butt kicked, but I was hoping to go early so that I could still make my meeting with the principal.
Instead, I was placed in the final pairing.
By then, I knew there was very little ch...
