Book Review: Spiral (Tunnels 5)

Spiral (Tunnels 5) by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams, Chicken House, Scholastic, New York, 2012.

This is the fifth installment of this series.  The battle between the Styx and all other sentient beings on the planet takes a couple of twists in this book.  The battle is more in the foreground, if you can see it.  It is mostly carried on by people who are black lit (hypnotized) and have inner parts removed and replaced with bomb material.  In essence, the person is the actual bomb so the bomb cannot be detected.  These bombers are all from England, so now the world is mad at England.

The fight is carried by Drake and his team to the Styx.  The first discover a transformation where the Styx are laying eggs which are to become a super army.  However, Drake and his team are able to intervene in time, but put down this threat.  Now there are two threats however.  Will and Elliot and Drake and a couple of his men went into the inner world, where the Styx were using the New Germanians as hosts.  They went with the goal of sealing the world off with nuclear explosions.  They actually are successful.

However a second operation on the surface does bring success to the Styx, enough success that the entire existence of humanity is in peril.  That is where we leave our story for the next book in the series.

This book has lots of death.  Parents and major characters die during the course of the events.  Chester loses his parents as his mother is darlit and sets of a bomb vest.  Many of Drake’s team lose their lives.  Previously Will lost his father, and his mother was tortured, his brother killed.  This book is different in that regard.  You don’t know who may die next.

However, the action is good, and there is plenty of intrigue.