Spy Family: Book 1

“Spy Family: Book 1” by James Rahfaldt is about when thirteen-year-old twins Elizabeth and James took a vacation with their parents from Illinois to Italy to see the sights.  But, as they were going through airport immigration in Italy, Luke, the dad, was taken into a room and handcuffed to the table with no explanation.  Finally, CIA agent Tom Howard entered the room.  Luke had met Tom once years before in Washington, DC when Luke and his family had been touring the White House. Tom took him aside and asked him to go to a dinner and talk to a man named Silvano.  Luke and his wife Bianca went to the dinner and that was that.

But, now in Italy, Luke learned that the man named Silvano was a counterfeiting crime boss.  At that dinner long ago, Silvano invited the Wards to meet again for dinner someday.  Now the CIA was eager to contact Silvano and the Ward family was their key.  Tom asked Luke to serve his country and use that long ago dinner invitation to contact Silvano.  It all sounded so simple.

I’ll tell you it wasn’t that simple!  It was hair-raising, action-packed and exciting.  It was one of the best books I’ve read.  There were a bunch of characters and I felt like I got to know them all.  I suggest that readers don’t get to like the bad guys too much.  The plot was well developed and very suspenseful. 

The book is only 180-pages long but the type is small and the margins are narrow, so the book took longer than I expected to read.  The book has some violence so people that don’t like that sort of thing might not like the book.  But, I savored every word.  I will recommend “Spy Family: Book 1” by James Rahfaldt to everyone I know.


Spy Family: Book 1
James Rahfaldt
Matcole Properties (2011)
ISBN 9780984927807
Reviewed by Evan Weldon (age 10) for Reader Views (3/12)