Simone LaFray and the Red Wolves of London - Book Review

Simone LaFray and the Red Wolves of London by Steve O'Farrell has preteen Simone LaFray taking on a puzzling case for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is a junior operative in their service.

Simone's top-secret mission involves finding a missing student's whereabouts and a significant digital asset called an OmniKey. This device is a powerful tool that can provide access to any computer or computer network. However, at the top of the list for Simone is, of course, finding Claire Pilfrey, who is a junior agent missing from the snooty Claymoore School in London. Claire had been going there for about three years. It is believed that Claire also knows of the whereabouts of the Omnikey. Simone is not alone in her search for Claire, both Scotland Yard and MI6 are also on the case but have been unable to find any real clues of her whereabouts.

Simone has solved a previous major case in Paris, her hometown. Her mission in London makes her appreciate and miss her 7 Rue Clodion, Paris home. Her father is also in London, opening a new business, and her mother is still back in Paris. Simone is concerned with her mother's health. Her mother had been feeling a bit ill lately, but Simone will soon find out that the illness is a blessing. Regardless being away from home bothers her.

Her adversaries are sinister individuals. She is pitted against two arch enemies, the Red Fox and the Maestro. The Maestro is a genius who has invented the Omnikey, which unsavory individuals could use in many nefarious ways.

Will Simone be helped by the Red Wolves, a few young graffiti artists whose work exposes corrupt individuals and companies? They would like Simone to be one of them. Would she join them and perhaps lose her position with the ministry? Regardless of what happens, she becomes very close to Jillian Auldridge and Maeve Stahl and even closer to her best friend, the V, during this operation.

Not only does Simone have to contend with the complexities of the mission, but she also has to engage with the politics and cattiness of her classmates at the prestigious London School. Yet, regardless of these distractions to her mission, she is determined to press on and find Claire Pilfrey and hopefully the Omnikey.

A web of lies, secrets, and a smattering of humor add to the breakneck saga of the sleuthing by Simone LaFray and her friends in their frantic race to solve the disappearance of junior operative Claire Pilfrey and to recover the Omnikey. Young mystery and suspense lovers will find it hard not to keep turning pages as fast as possible in a desperate attempt to discover how it all ends.