Robin Benway. Also Known As. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print.

Robin Benway. Going Rogue. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. Print.

Have Young Adult Teen Spy books become a genre? Also Known As introduces Maggie Silver, teen safecracker for the Collective, an international spy agency reminiscent of UNCLE, SHIELD, or maybe CONTROL. It is different from the Gallagher Girl series because Maggie attends a stereotypical New York society prep school, not a school for spies. But she is in the school on assignment—to get information from a magazine publisher who is ready to expose the Collective ring that she and her parents belong to.

A lot of the conflict in the book is not spy action, though. Maggie tries to navigate the established social order of her new school. The book even mentions Mean Girls at least twice.

There are also tips of the hat to various fictional spies and writers like James Bond, Emma Peel, and Agatha Christie. It is fun. While there is enough action and intrigue to keep guys interested, this is at its heart a chick book. While Maggie does have some tense moments cracking safes, she is far more concerned with how she fits in at school and the nice boy who happens to be the son of the magazine publisher.

Snappy dialogue keep the story moving along as Maggie finds her way with Roux, a reformed mean girl; Jesse, the nice boy; Angelo, her gay spymaster; and, as with all teens, her parents. She does not necessarily save the world, but the story is fun, if formulaic.

The second book in the series, Going Rogue, has a similar plot line except their adventures take them to Paris. There was a lot of talk about the sewers and underground tunnels of Paris like the feast of fools in The Hunchback of Notre Dame or the King of the Sewer Men in The Madwoman of Chaillot; however, most of the action takes place above ground. The one question at the end of the second novel is whether or not the Collective even exists any more since the conflict in both books involve treacherous leaders within the agency.