Hacking Timbuktu

October 25, 2010
In this nonstop action piece from Davies, the author's first book to be published in the U.S., the reappearance of a long-lost manuscript leading to a legendary cache of stolen gold sparks a worldwide treasure hunt. Moktar Hasim starts the ball rolling when he absconds with the map and its key, but 16-year-old computer expert Danny Temple follows the trail by obtaining a digital copy. Once word gets out that he knows how to find the gold, Danny and his best friend Omar are soon on the run for their lives. To survive, Danny and Omar draw on their considerable computer skills and their equally impressive parkour (urban free-running) experience as they journey from London to Africa with danger close behind. Davies adeptly describes and draws parallels between parkour and hacking ("Both move freely to surpass the barriers erected by man to enclose and restrict"), which should pique readers' interest. Although the characterizations can be shallow and the conclusion is rather breakneck, the prose is as fluid as the parkour moves performed within, and this fast-paced adventure doesn't skimp on ambition or adrenaline. Ages 12–up.

October 15, 2010

In 14th-century Timbuktu, university student Akonio Dolo heists Mansa Musa's gold, but he leaves a clue hinting at its secret location before plunging to his death. This Dan Brown–esque thriller picks up in modern-day Mali, where Moktar Hasim, after scanning a magic square for the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project, identifies and steals the key to the missing gold. In London, a treasure hunter and Knight of Akonio Dolo tries to enlist Danny Temple, a 16-year-old who quit school to do freelance IT, to hack Timbuktu and retrieve the key. He rejects the job but, along with his best friend, Omar, Danny joins the chase, employing his hacking skills and parkour moves (a physical discipline of French origin in which participants run along a route and use such skills as jumping and climbing to negotiate objects in their environment) to travel to the Dogon region of Mali, evade stereotyped villains and locate the hidden gold. Although the story is often clichéd, Danny's hacking-and-parkour comparisons (both involve exploration and special techniques, for instance) and the rarely covered Mali will entice reluctant readers. (author's note) (Thriller. YA)

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February 1, 2011

Gr 7 Up-Parkour is a philosophy and an athletic endeavor that entails moving through a space as efficiently as possible; this usually requires vaulting over fences, running up walls, and leaping over naturally occurring obstacles. Danny, 16, is a parkour devotee trying to make it on his own in London as a freelance IT tech when members of the Knights of Akonio Dolo forcefully request that he use his hacking skills to help them recover a recently discovered clue that will lead them to two million mithquals of gold bars stolen from a temple in Timbuktu in the 14th century. Danny refuses to help the treasure hunters, but hacks on his own. When they learn that he has the clue, an international race is on, and Danny must use all of his skills to stay ahead of the game. The story is packed with chase scenes that imply a great deal of physically daring movement, "Kong, kong, underpass, swan. Double kong, underpass, kash vault, kong," but the terms mean nothing to parkour neophytes and therefore lack intensity. The clue takes Danny and his pal Omar to the Dogon region of Mali. The detailed description of the area and culture is the highlight of the book; unfortunately, respect for the culture is undermined by Danny's decision to crawl through a Dogon burial cave and desecrate the bodies inside in his haste to reach the gold. Greed leading to poor decisions is a theme throughout the book. While the story is far-fetched, it has enough action to satisfy avid adventure readers and teens interested in parkour.-Caroline Tesauro, Radford Public Library, VA

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2010
Grades 7-10 Davies delivers a satisfying mix of history, exotic locales, computer hacking, and parkour racing in this well-constructed adventure story. Two London teens, Danny and Omar, are connected to a 17-year-old boy in fourteenth-century Timbuktu through a doodle Danny discovers on a manuscript he has scanned. Turns out, the long-ago student stole a fortune in gold, hid it in a secret chamber under a mosque, and left a map to the treasure behind. Danny, a hacker for good causes, leads the quest to follow clues to the treasure. A large part of the fascination and energy of this book comes from Danny and Omars mode of travelparkour, the art of traveling quickly around urban obstacles, using leaps, rolls, and purposeful falls. Parkour becomes a wonderfully apt metaphor for the way Danny and Omar find their way through a villain- and obstacle-rich course. Reminiscent of Nick Hornbys Slam (2007), in which the teen hero skateboards, and Rick Riordans Lightning Thief series as well as his latest, The Red Pyramid (2010).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)