(Cover picture courtesy of ACK children and young adults.)

One man holds the key to freeing Aiden and Meg Falconer’s parents from prison: a mysterious figure named Frank Lindenauer.  Aiden and Meg must cross the country to try to catch them…even as the FBI tries to catch them first.

In California, Aiden and Meg fall in with a crowd that already has its share of trouble.  They want to believe they’ve found friends who will help them out.  But if they’re not careful, these “friends” will sell them out instead.

More impossible escapes, more danger and more excitement.  One would not think Gordon Korman’s On the Run series would be all that different, but unlike a lot of action/thriller series, it’s not just the numbers on the spines that distinguish one book from another.  Each book moves the plot forward while providing all the action and humour you can expect from Gordon Korman.

What distinguishes Now You See Them, Now You Don’t from the first two books is that we discover more about the mysterious Frank Lindenauer and we see the darker side of the inner city.  Meg and Aiden finally make mistakes and it’s only luck that saves them at times, not their own ingenuity.  This would be annoying except for the fact it shows they have flaws; they’re not the perfect fugitives.  They are still clever enough to hold readers’ attention, but their flaws give them a lot more depth than they had before.

The premise of On the Run certainly isn’t unique (going on the run to prove someone’s innocence), but for the target age group it certainly will be.  Even if you’ve read something like this before, Gordon Korman’s humour and action-packed writing will win you over.  They’re quite short books, only around 100 pages, but I still re-read them once a year.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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