Blake is a cannibal.  He is also incredibly smart, and sometimes consults to the FBI on missing persons cases. In book 1, he had a deal with the director of the local FBI office–the director would give him bodies to eat, and Blake would keep safe the director’s drug addiction secret.  Blake is in love with FBI Agent Reese Thistle.  The two of them grew up in the same orphanage.  She was adopted, he was not, and he spent time living homeless.

In book 2, Blake is the “body disposal” buy for local crime lord Charlie Warner (who is a woman). There are 2 cases going on.  “The Crawdad Man” is abducting and killing middle-aged overweight white men.  It turns out a former call girl of Warner’s has been killing men and stitching them together to make a “giant” sex doll.  She lures the men by hanging out on a kink site for men who are into giants.  At the end of the book, pretty much everyone involved is dead.

Thistle has decided she wants a relationship with Blake, and they have a few nights of sex.  Then Thistle discovers body parts at Blake’s and is convinced that he is the Crawdad Man.  At the end of the book, she has left Houston for points unknown.

The other case is about a grad students who kidnaps and rapes women, records it, and trades the videos with “Fred” who records torture and murder.  At the end of this book,  Blake has found out where Fred lives, and has gone to his house in the woods.  Just before Blake is about to shoot Fred,  Fred mentions that “the other guys” also enjoyed the video.  Blake puts the gun away, presumably so he can find out who these other guys are.

Hero/Narrator:  Luka Kane.  16 years old.  Imprisoned in the Loop when he took the blame when his sister shoved a man (who was about to kill her off the roof)
Luka’s friends: Kina (love interest), Igby, Pander, Malachi (recently resuced from the Arc, blinded as a result), Wren (former Loop guard, still recovering from Block torture),  Sam (who just gave birth), Molly (his sister), Maddox (former Loop inmate, now controlled by Happy)

Other characters:
Happy (the AI system that is taking over the world, using humans as living batteries; the harvesting process is terrifying, and that fear provides the power)
Galen Rye: World Leader, totally supports Happy’s plan
Tyco Roth:  Luka’s nemesis, blames Luka for death of his brother; now controlled by Happy)
Dr Ortega/Dr Soto:  was somehow behind some of the systems at the Loop, also developed part of the system used to keep the Missing “alive”
The Missing:  scores of people who have somehow managed to disappear.  They “live” in cylinders that make them technically dead, but easily revivable.  They have spent most of their time in a virtual world called Purgatory, but Luka, Molly and Malachai tried to convince them that it was a prison, and they should come back to the world and fight.

At the start of the book, Luka, Kina and Wren are freed from the Block by their friends.  The friends have been hiding out, staying hidden with the help of Igby and his jury-rigged computer system.  They determine that the need the Missing to form an army.  Luka is also determined to find his friends Woods and Malachai who are being kept in the Arc as preparation for being turned into Happy-controlled “zombies.”  He frees Malachai, but has to tear out his eyes so Happy can’t gain control;  Woods kills himself.  Then, Luka and Malachai discover the Missingm along with Molly, being held in Purgatory with its creator Dr Price.  After spending some time there, they escape and free the others, if they wish.

When they return to the group, Sam is in labor and their hideout is being flooded by a rainstorm directed by Happy.  Tyco Roth appears, as ever intent on killing Luka.  Luka makes a deal that he will go with Tyco if Happy will spare his friends, who are all in the panic room.  Happy agrees, the friends escape, except for Pod who sacrificed himself so they could get out of the panic room. Luka goes with Tyco.

Luka makes another deal with Happy that if Happy will allow the friends to live safely and grow old in the Arc, that Luka will make a public statement supporting Happy’s plans.  Instead, he broadcasts a recording of Galen/Happy saying what their plans are for the human race (to use them as eternal batteries).  Luka is executed.

Jacob and Noor (the newly found peculiar who can eat light) are on the run from Leo Burnham’s gang in Chinatown, NYC.  Leo runs the Northern Gang of American peculiars.  Jacob and Noor escape and find their way to the Devil’s Acre loop where their friends are.  Jacob was worried they’d be angry at him and he’d lose their friendship, but all is forgiven. Jacob explains that before H died he said to find V, who raised Noor. It also turns out the Noor is eluded to in a prophecy about 7 peculiars who will emancipate the peculiar world.  No one really knows what this means. Noor has very little memory of her childhood, so Horace, Millard and the gang set up for the libraries to use what little clues they have to try to locate V, and to figure out the meaning of the prophecy.  Hugh is upset that they’re trying harder to find V than they ever tried to find Fiona, who disappeared a couple books ago.

Miss Peregrine and the other ymbrynes are heading to American for the peace conference, to help settle things among the American groups.   The night they leave, the wights escape from prison.  Jacob has a bad feeling this is somehow connected to Miss P’s brother Caul, who is supposedly trapped in a collapsed loop, never to escape. It turns out Jacob, Horace and Miss P have all had nightmares or just bad vibes about Caul lately.

The ymbrynes return, but they need Jacob to join them; they need his hollowgast-finding ability.  A Northern Clan girl has been kidnapped, and they think the Californios did it; it retaliation, they’ve taken a Californio.  After a false start, Jacob manages to track down a hollow, and after a big chase, finds the kidnapped girl, and also finds clues that the wights who took her may also have Fiona.  Somewhere in here, Miss P and the gang have deciphered more of the prophecy, and gather that the wights, led by Murnau, are gathering materials needed to…make bad things happen.   Clues in the prophecy lead the team back to America, where they are able to track the wights.  The good news is, they find Fiona.  The bad news is, she’s in bad shape–the wights have taken her tongue, one of the objects mentioned in the prophecy.

Everyone gets back to Devil’s Acre.  They believe that one of the objects is Miss Peregrine herself, and since she is safe, all is well.  Fiona with Hugh by her side is off to the clinic.

Noor gets a postcard from V, from a small town in Pennsylvania.  She and Jacob had there, and discover a loop that is one big tornado.  Using a childhood rhyme that V taught Noor years ago, they manage to stay safe from tornadoes, and track down V, who is shocked to see them.  It turns out she didn’t send the card, it was a trick set up the wight Murnau.  And the object he’s after isn’t Miss P, it’s V! He kills(?) her just as Jacob loses consciousness.

In a little epilogue, some randome girl with a stuffed animal named Pensevus (who whispers to her) makes a 6 phone calls, saying only “He’s back.”

Key Plot points

1.  Max and Bairstow create a plan to take down Clive Ronan once and for all.  Max “leaves” St Mary’s and goes to work for the Time Police.
2.  Max and Leon’s son Matthew notices an error in the Time Map and basically destroys it while fixing it.
3. Max and the Time Police go back to the 1500s to find that Lady Jane Grey has been Queen for 35 years, and London is about to be attacked by the Spanish Armada.  Max and the Time Police connect with the St Mary’s folks who are also there, and fix things.
4. Max returns to St Mary’s for a visit, and find that everyone evacuated and the Idiot Halcombe has taken over, with Peterson and several historians as hostages.  Halcombe wants her to go to 33BC, and Max doesn’t want to but goes in order to save her friends.  The TP appear there and arrest Halcombe’s men.
5. Max gets the secret evacuation location out of Peterson, and finds the rest of St Mary’s.  Also there are Adrian and Mikey and their teapot pod.  All part of the plan.
6. Max returns to the TP police and with some drama and theatrics, escapes with Adrian and Mikey.  She connects with a criminal named Wolfe, who she is certain will bring her in contact with Clive Ronan. Wolfe, his henchman, the teens and Max all head to the Creataceous period, sure that Ronan will be there.
7. Ronan kills Wolfe and his henchmen, and nearly kills Max before the TP and St Mary’s show up to save the day.
8. Back the TPHQ, Max and Bairstow learn that Clive Ronan has been released because he still has things to do in his future/ Max’s past.  But they’ve put a bomb in his head.  The TP say the Matthew needs to stay with him for this reason.  Max is very pissed, and she and Bairstow return to St Mary’s, swearing to the Time Police that they had better not show their faces ever again.
9. Surprise!  Matthew is with St Mary’s.

Characters
William Warwick: main character.  Has always wanted to be a police officer, and in this book is the new DC (Detective Constable) for the Arts & Antiquities Division.  At the end of the book, Hawksby tells him that he will be sent to the graduates’ promotion programmed, and promoted to Sergeant, and that he will be transferred to another department.

Commander Hawksby:  head of the department

DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Bruce Lamont:   Warwick’s direct supervisor

DS (Detective Sergeant) Jackie Roycroft:  a colleague.  She botches a takedown of a presumed art theft, and is demoted

Miles Faulker: presumed art thief.  The department has been chasing him for years for the theft of a Rembrandt painting for the Fitzmolean Museum.  At the end of the book, he is found not guilty of theft, but guilty of receiving stolen goods, and is sentenced to 4 years, suspended sentence.  On the final page, at a ceremony where the museum celebrates the return of the Rembrandt, and his donation of a Rueben, he whispers in  Warwick’s ear that he’d love to show him the original.

Christina Faulkner:  Miles’s soon-to-be-ex wife.  She’s clearly up to something, apparently trying to steal all of Miles’s art before he can do anything, but her plan goes wrong when he finds out.  At his trial, it’s unclear who’s lying more–her or Miles.  She sneaks into William’s bed one night while he’s supposed to be supervising the transfer of paintings, and he goes along with it since she seems to be a valuable ally against Miles.  He doesn’t tell Beth about this.

Sir Julian  Warwick:  William’s father, a very successful and well known defense attorney, which is partly why William wants to be a police officer, to catch criminals instead of set them free, like his father

Grace Warwick: William’s sister, also an attorney

Booth Watson: Faulker’s attorney, and longtime nemesis of both Sir Julian, and the Arts and Antiquities Division

Beth Rainsford:  Warwick’s love interest. She works at the Fitzmolean Museum, so she’s very interested in getting the Rembrandt back.  Her father is in prison for a murder he did not commit.

Arthur Rainsford:  Beth’s father.  His verdict is overturned in an appeal trial, thanks to Sir Julian and Grace Warwick.

second in a series. first was Imposters

main characters:

Frey:  the second daughter of Shreve.  Raised to be her twin sister’s body double, Frey had no life of her own until the events in Book One.  In Book One she was sent to the city of Victoria (impersonating her sister). While there she fell in love with Col, first son, and discovered her father’s plan to destroy the city.  But it was too late.  At the end of Imposters, she and Col wound up back in Shreve.

Rafia of Shreve:  the first daughter

Their father: dictator of Shreve

Col: first son of Victoria

Boss X: a leader of one of the rebel crews

Teo: Col’s younger brother

Trin:  a teenage girl who runs a very successful unoffical news channel.

Essa:  a resident of the city of Pax.

Plot Points

At the end of Imposters, Frey and Rafia outed themselves, hoping it would turn people against their father, but it didn’t work.  Rafia ran off, Frey stayed behind, continuing to impersonate her.

Frey and Col are engaged to be married, in an effort to bring Shreve and Victoria together (so says her father); they are basically imprisoned in the city.  Frey’s father has cameras, “spy dust” and other technology througout the city so no one has any privacy.

Frey and Col manage to escape.  Frey heads for the city of Pax, believing Rafia to be there. Col joins the displaced Victorians and rebels in the woods.

Shortly after Frey’s arrival, she is tattooed with “feels”, which allow a person to bring up emotions that are useful in a certain situation.  Everyone in Pax has them.  Pax also is a city where people all have privacy; the city’s AI is limited on what it knows about the residents.

Frey’s father manages to trigger an earthquake in Pax, though no one is sure how.  Before it shuts down, the Pax AI tells Frey “Iron Mountain” but she doesn’t know what it means. Shreve assistance arrives quickly, though Trin and Frey discover that all the reconstruction Shreve is “helping” with is actually loaded with spy-tech.  Frey also learns that, posing as Frey, Rafia has managed to become the “boss” of a rebel group.

Frey is taken in the the city of Diego’s AI (which is basically a bunch of robots) and agrees to a deal with will help bring down her father.  She and the AI head for Diego, but Frey is nabbed by her rebel friends on the way.  Frey and Rafia (and Col) are reunited.

Frey, Col and other rebels learn that Iron Mountain contains tons of data about Rusty corps, and also is where the Pax AI has backed itself up.  After a battle in which many rebels die,  Frey and the others retrieve the Pax AI.  During the battle, Boss X is captures and Teo is injured.

At the end of the book we learn a bunch of things:

the assassin that Frey kills in Imposters is actually the long lost brother Seanan (who was also Boss X’s boyfriend)

there is a spy in Shreve who is feeding them info, including that Boss X is alive

Rafia gives her crew to Frey

The rebels decide to head to Shreve on their own, without the support of Diego, and with the help of the mystery spy, they plan to take down Frey’s father.

Jacob and his peculiar friends are reunited in Florida; they no longer have to worry about rapidly aging outside their loop.  During an outing, they discover the safe house and mission book of Jacob’s grandfather.  Jacob contacts his grandfather’s partner, H, who sends him on a mission.

Jacob, Emma (fire hands), Bronwyn (strong), Enoch (can raise the dead) and Millard (invisible) head off to rescue an “uncontacted” peculiar girl. They pass through Flamingo Manor (a loop in Georgia) and Portal (another loop).  They make friends in both places before heading to New York where they locate Noor, a girl who can “eat” light and make it completely dark, and also spit the light back out.  They are arrested by a gang led by a man named Leo, who wants to kill Jacob for the perceived crimes of his grandfather.

The group is rescued by Miss Peregrine, who is furious.  They have endangered the ymbrines peace talks to help settle things down in America, where peculiar society is made up of 3 rival gangs and many unorganized loops.  She also tells him about an old group of normals who have a been trying to eliminate peculiars for years. Jacob still think they were doing the right thing by trying to help Noor. Leaving the rest of his friends behind, he makes his way back to H, only to find him dying by the hands of the men who were hunting Noor.  Noor is also there.  H dies, and Jacob and Noor escape, to hunt for Jacob’s other partner, a woman known as V.

In the near future, everything is controlled by an almost omniscient AI, called the Thunderhead. Hunger, death, and corruption have all been conquered. In order to control population size, the Scythedom was created. The Scythedom is the only organization that is not controlled by the Thunderhead and it consists of people who have been appointed the role of scythe. Scythes are the only people truly allowed to kill, and there are many different views on what a good scythe is within the Scythedom.

Rowan and Citra take opposite stances on the morality of the Scythedom, putting them at odds, in the chilling sequel to the Printz Honor Book Scythe from New York Times bestseller Neal Shusterman, author of the Unwinddystology.

The Thunderhead cannot interfere in the affairs of the Scythedom. All it can do is observe—it does not like what it sees.

A year has passed since Rowan had gone off grid. Since then, he has become an urban legend, a vigilante snuffing out corrupt scythes in a trial by fire. His story is told in whispers across the continent.

As Scythe Anastasia, Citra gleans with compassion and openly challenges the ideals of the “new order.” But when her life is threatened and her methods questioned, it becomes clear that not everyone is open to the change.

Characters:

Scythe Anastasia/Citra Teranova:  Citra is a new scythe, but definitely making waves.  She gives her “victims” a month to put their affairs in order before she gleans them.  In this book, there is someone out to kill her and her mentor, Scythe Curie.

Rowan Damisch/ “Scythe Lucifer”: After not being selected, but being granted immunity for one year by Citra, Rowan has made it his mission to glean the Scythes who are cruel, or otherwise find too much pleasure in their job

Scythe Goddard and Scythe Rand:  both were presumed dead by Rowan’s hand, yet managed to survive.  By tricking Rowan’s friend Tyger,  Rand managed to graft Goddard’s head onto Tyger’s body, thus bringing him “back to life” and setting him up to be nominated for the lead Scythe of Midmerica.  Citra manages to delay his nomination by suggestion he’s not really a Scythe–only his head and brain have been properly trained.  Goddard is livid.

Greyson Tolliver:  has always been in service to the Thunderhead.  But the Thunderhead uses him to warn Citra and Curie of the plan against them (the Thunderhead is supposed to have no dealings in the world of the Scythedom, but believes Citra is special, and uses a convoluted way to get Greyson to deliver his message).  Greyson essentially gives up his existance and is branded an “Unsavory” and is able to track the plot.  At the end of the book, the Thunderhead finally reaches out to him directly again, though we don’t know for what reason.

End of the Book:  All of the major Scythes of the world are gathered for an annual(?) conference, at which Citra’s claim against Goddard will be heard.  The World  Council declares him ineligible, and that he must spend a year as an apprentice first.  But, Goddard has been planning for months to destroy all the lead Scythe’s of the world, leaving himself the only survivor, and the only one who knows the verdict.  Scythe Curie manages to get Citra and Rowan into an airtight box, that sinks to the bottom of the ocean.  She knows they will become “deadish”, but their bodies will remain intact inside the box. When their remains are found (in months, years, thousands of years??), they will be revived.  The book ends with them at the bottom of the ocean, Goddard ready to take over the world, and Greyson being called back to the Thunderhead’s side.

The Naturals are a group of teens who work for the FBI.  They each have some remarkable skill that is helpful in finding criminals.

Cassie:  protagonist, a profiler.  When she was young, she came upon her mother’s blood spattered closet, but no body.  She has always assumed her mother was murdered, but at the end of Book 3, we learn her mother is alive and is somehow part of the cult described in this book. Cassie is in a relationship with Dean, which annoys Michael.  Her father is in the military, so she had been living with her very Italian grandmother Nonna when the FBI recruited her for the Naturals program.

Dean: also a profiler. His father was a serial killer, now in prison.

Michael:  can read emotions on someone’s face.  He was abused by his father, who tries to make up for it by giving Michael loads of money.

Lia:  can tell if someone is lying.  Biting and sarcastic.  We don’t know much about her backstory, except that she lived on the streets.  Periodically has a thing with Michael.  Thinks of Dean as her brother.

Sloane:  gifted with math, numbers and patterns. She’s socially awkward, yet endearing.  In book 3, she helps figure out the pattern of a series of murders–they follow the Fibonacci sequence and spiral.  The book is set at a casino in Las Vegas which is owned by her biological father and brother.  She is extremely thrown off by this, although her brother does reach out to her.  Sadly, he is the 4th victim.

Briggs and Sterling:  the two FBI agents who run the Naturals program. In book 1, Agent Locke was in charge, but she turned out to be the killer, and also the sister of Cassie’s presumed dead mom.

Judd: former Marine, in charge of keeping the teens safe.  His daughter, Scarlett, was a victim of the serial killer called Nightshade.

Book 3 highlights

At the start of the book, Cassie learns that a body has been found, and early tests indicate it is her mother.  She doens’t have time to deal with this because the team is sent to Vegas to deal with a series of murders. After Sloane figures out the pattern of these murders, she and the team discover that there have been crimes happening for over 100 years that feature the same pattern.  They determine that some kind of long lived cult is involved. The number Nine is somehow important, and it seems there is a child (called Nine) who will be important to the cult.  They also figure out that Nightshade’s crimes were part of this series.  At the end of the book, they find the child called “Nine”(or Laurel) and Cassie learns that Laurel’s mother is also Cassie’s mother, leading Cassie to believe her mother is somehow alive after all.

Set 400 years in the future, after a nuclear blast pretty much destroyed everything. Now, humans have survived but babies are always born as boy/girl twin.  One twin is “perfect”, the other has some kind of mutation.  The abnormal twin is branded and labeled an Omega, and sent off to live in  Omega-only villages.  Omegas are second-class citizens at best, but the Alphas need them–when one twin dies or is seriously hurt, the other one is too.  Omegas are forced to live in shabby villages, on poor land, and are required to pay unreasonable tithes. In desperation, some of them  move to “refuges” where they are given shelter in return for labor, but they will never really be able to leave.  Alphas and Omegas both fear any kind of technology from the Before, to the point that even touching ruins is taboo.

Cass:  our progagonist.  Cass is a seer (which makes her an Omega), and has visions of the future, past and present.  She can also “feel” places, and navigate places she’s never been.  In the first book, she is put in a “Keeping Room” for years at the order of her powerful twin, Zach.  Keeping her locked up will keep him safe. Cass escapes and resuces Kip, then the two of them find their way to the Omega resistance.

Zach: Cass’s Alpha twin.  He has become a powerful leader in the Council and is known as the Reformer.  In spite of the taboo, Zach has created machines called tanks, which will hold people in suspended animation indefinitely.  He, and the General (another Council leader) see this as the way to solve the Omega problem.

Kip:  During her escape, Cass first comes across the tanks, and rescues a man from them.  He has no memory of his previous life; Cass names him Kip.  They travel together and fall in love.  At the end of book 1, we learn that Kip’s twin is the Confessor, an evil Omaga seer who has aligned herself with Zach and the Council. Kip kills himself by jumping off a high platform, killing the Confessor at the same time.  In book 2, Cass learns that Zack took Kip’s and the  Confessor’s bodies, somehow brought them back to life (but barely) and tanked them in the Ark.  Knowing Kip would never want this, Cass pulls Kip from the tank, letting him rest in peace at last.

Piper:  leader of the resistance.  On the island, he refuses to have Cass killed, even though it would kill Zach at the same time.  When the Alphas attack the island, many Omegas blame him and Cass for all the death and destruction.

Zoe:  Piper’s Alpha twin.  She has chosen to remain with her brother, and fight for the resistance, in spite of being an Alpha.  In book 2, she disappears while she, Piper and Cass are searching for the Ark.  She reappears at the end of the book, having located the presumed lost ship, the Rosalind, which has managed to make contact with some people from “Elsewhere.”

The Ringmaster: another Council leader.  He joins the resistance to free the town of New Hobart, because he believes in the taboo and thinks Zach and the General are leading the people towards disaster by using Before technology.  It is not exactly an  easy alliance between him and the resistance.

Elsa:  a woman of New Hobart.  She took in Cass and Kip when they were on the run and then helped them escape the town when the Council showed up to wall it in.  Cass finds her again in book 2, after New Hobart has been freed, but not before the children of the town have been tanked, and later killed, by the Council army.  Elsa’s husband Joe had found papers that described the Ark.

The Ark:  an underground bunker built to survive the blast.  Papers found indicate that the scientists of the Ark had discovered a way to stop the twinning, but the method is not described.  It is implied that eliminating the twin phenomenon will not eliminate mutations. There are also indications that they had contact with Elsewhere.  In book 2, Cass and Piper find the Ark (as does Zach), and discover that its residents had tanked themselves, in hopes of being awakened.  This is where Zach found out about the tanking technology; he and the Council have also taken the technology that caused the original blast, and have plans to use it on Elsewhere.  The Council does not want the resistance to find the people of Elsewhere and learn how they stopped the twinning.

Paloma:  a woman from Elsewhere.  The crew of the Rosalind found her and she came back with them, as something of an ambassador.