The spreadsheet Midnight uses to organise her time is especially cluttered at the moment. Her life would be busy if she only had to think about school and preparations for her mother’s upcoming Viking wedding. Now she also needs to psych herself up for her first date (eep!) with her crush, Logan. Then there’s the Agency of Spectral Protection work that she and her best friend, Tabitha, do.

There’s never any shortage of spectral energy in Berry, Midnight’s home town, and Midnight is one of the few people who can see it. But with so much spectral energy around, there’s also more potential for the Black Stream, which is what happens when spectral energy becomes trapped in objects, becoming a dark force known as planodiume.

When strange robberies involving planodiume begin to occur around Berry, Midnight’s life gets even busier. If Midnight and Tabitha can’t solve these crimes then everyone in Berry could be in danger.

“This is a Code Black”

My favourite character in this series is Tabitha, who always wears black and knows the town cemetery better than she does her own home. I’m also a pretty big fan of Midnight’s future stepfather, Phil, who loves Vikings as much as he loves Midnight’s mother. Phil didn’t have a huge part in this book but he endeared himself to me so much in the first book that my love for him carried over into this one.

Adult readers of this series may need to ignore the red flags that wave furiously each time twelve year old Midnight is allowed to galavant around the town at all hours, working for a super secret organisation. They will also have to squish down the qualms they have about said super secret organisation hiring twelve year olds to undertake potentially dangerous work for them without parental permission. I suggest locking up your adult brain and simply enjoying the adventure as it unfolds.

Although you could potentially read this book without having read ‘Midnight Reynolds and the Spectral Transformer’, I would definitely recommend reading them in order. There are some major first book spoilers in this one and it’s possible the whole spectral energy thing may be slightly fuzzy if you weren’t there with Midnight when she first encountered it.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Albert Whitman & Company for the opportunity to read this book. I’m keen to read the next book in the series.