For graduates of Percy Jackson comes the “tongue-in-cheek…pleasantly goofy” ( Publishers Weekly ) adventure-filled story of an average boy offered a life of villainy that’s about good vs. evil, mischief vs. mayhem, and making your mark on the world, by acclaimed author Alex Evanovich. If you’ve ever lost a sock in the dryer, it might have been the work of the Evil Villains International League, E.V.I.L. And if your feet smell so bad, they keep you from making friends, good news! You might be invited to join. After growing up in the care of his nagging grandmother and coasting through school with a mediocre GPA, Keeper Chance gets invited to try out for a spot in his local chapter of E.V.I.L. Keeper’s not sure his unremarkable life makes him villain material, but things get more remarkable, and fast, when Keeper and another new recruit, Toby, face the chapter’s first test—and disasters begin to snowball. As cookies and members of E.V.I.L. go missing, a mysterious girl named Y who doesn’t miss anything joins Keeper and Toby’s efforts. Despite the urgency of his mission, Keeper still can’t shake the question of why he was chosen for the league when he’s nothing special. As Keeper races against the clock to save his new friends, nothing is easy, and nothing is ever as it seems. Can he uncover his true nature in time to ensure the survival of villainy—or does his true destiny follow a different path? Sixteen-year-old Keeper Chance, who has a knack for intuitive tinkering and lives with his grandmother, is doing his best to adopt a slacker persona and fly under the radar at school. Then he’s recruited by Chaos, head of Chapter 626 of Evil Villains International League, an organization described as “necessary evil”: “We’re the sock that goes missing in the dryer. We’re the kid who won’t stop screaming on the plane.” Keeper joins fellow recruit Toby, a talented hacker with exceptional hearing and smell, in pulling off a daring cookie heist (essential for initiation), only to stumble across a truly villainous kidnapping scheme. Together with Y, daughter of the mysterious do-gooder Sensei Love, Keeper must thwart this abduction ploy and claim his place among his new community. Evanovich’s debut, a tongue-in-cheek take on comic book tropes, features a quirky cast with mundane, oddball powers such as talking down prices or sucking the fun out of any situation. The villains barely tip the scales past petty nuisances, making this a pleasantly goofy story and a satisfying beginning to Keeper’s adventures, with plenty of room for further exploration. The protagonists read as white. Ages 10–up. Agent: Celeste Fine, Park & Fine Literary. (Oct.) -- Publishers Weekly ― 8/5/2024 “A buddy book, a coming of age, and a hint of romance that is for anyone and everyone with an inner, or outer, child to celebrate. Keeper Chance is brilliant, brave, and most of all… fun. I wish I had written this book.” -- Janet Evanovich, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Alex Evanovich lives in North Carolina with her family. Her favorite Hobbit is Samwise Gamgee. The Sorting Hat says she’s a Ravenclaw. Her favorite Darth Maul is the one from Star Wars: The Clone Wars with giant robot legs. And she’s never rolled a nat 20. Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1 THE man known as Chaos had entered Peachmont High School through a back door. It hadn’t required a key or a crowbar. All that was needed was a chain of mildly catastrophic events causing the lock to fail and rendering the security system inoperable. His footsteps echoed throughout the halls, and his boots squeaked on the tile floors. “Why do empty schools always feel like a haunted, abandoned mental institution?” Chaos whispered to himself. The idea was probably left over from the irreparable psychological damage done around four decades ago, when he suffered through the horrors of high school. Chaos’s penlight flickered across painted concrete brick walls, illuminating flyers for chess club and theater tryouts. He found his destination, language arts room 347, at the end of the hall. Chaos opened the door, went straight to the teacher’s desk, and started rifling through the drawers, searching for papers belonging to the fifth-period class. He opened the period five folder and thumbed through it until he found Keeper Chance’s story. It had an 80 percent grade, and written in red pencil was Great effort! Chaos read the story and rolled his eyes. “Puh-leaze!” He was hardly the literary type, but he knew a slapdash job when he saw one. The paper was solid C material, and this teacher’s comment was completely insulting to Keeper’s lack of effort. Chaos put the paper back inside the folder and left room 347 in search of precalculus, room 102. He had already hacked into the school’s systems and seen Keeper Chance’s schedule, report cards, and individual grades for assignments and tests. For that matter, he had been following Keeper’s educational career for quite some time, but there