Beyond the Grave

I've never read anything by Jude Watson before.  I just looked him her up on Amazon and other than a couple of these 39 clues books, he she seems to have written a slew of Jedi Apprentice books.  Well it was a good fit.  He She keeps the requisite action and puzzles going with a bit better depth of character than the last book.

Amy and Dan became unbearably catty in book 3, but in this one they bond more as you would expect two orphans in a life-threatening situation to do.

The Egyptian aspect was great fun as well.  I actually learned a few things.  And he she even played with cultural expectations a few times.  Amy and Dan are rescued from a possible croc attack at night on the Nile by a shifty character alone in a boat.  He has a knife and there is blood in his boat.  But as soon as he begins speaking they realize he's not only a friendly fisherman, but he's bonding with Dan over the Boston Red Sox!

There is plenty of fun historical name-dropping.  Napoleon, Churchill, Mark Twain, Howard Carter and many more show up in one form or another in the course of this book.  If nothing else, kids reading it are getting a good amount of fun history with their adventure.

At this point I don't really care what this is all leading up too.  I just want to read them all so I can talk to the kids that are into them.  Every character is either completely self-centered and will screw over the kids (I can't believe they keep falling for that) or are really good and will probably die before the end of the series.

*Update: Okay, you can see why I thought Jude was a male.  The only other Jude that pops to mind is Jude Law.  And Star Wars books?  C'mon.  It was an honest mistake...