What happens to an ordinary Kiwi teenager who is suddenly tossed into a world of espionage, violence and murder? What happens to an ordinary Kiwi teenager who is suddenly tossed into a world of espionage, violence and murder? Nick is 15 and his autism makes him socially awkward and shy but he does his best to ‘act normal’.
It is 1987 and Nick, the story’s narrator, is accompanying his Grandpa Joe on a trip to Germany in order to spread Grandma Josie’s ashes in her homeland. As they enter the Hotel Adlon, the reader will realise that Nick notices everything. He even counts the chairs and tables in the lobby. More significantly, Nick spots a man who is paying close attention to his grandfather. Mystery deepens as Grandpa Joe leads Nick deep into the back streets of Berlin. Nick is puzzled when Grandpa Joe keeps looking in shop windows. ‘I’ve noticed he’s not really looking through the window, but at the reflection of the footpath and road behind us. But why?’
Readers of Brian Falkner’s Katipo Joe series of wartime espionage adventures will have recognised Joe as a successful spy back in the days of Nazi Germany. Nick learns of his grandfather’s war service with amazement: ‘Grandpa Joe killed his first person at the age of fourteen and his second, a Gestapo agent, at fifteen.’ Years have passed but there are plenty of people in Berlin who remember Joe. To Nick’s horror, Grandpa Joe suddenly vanishes. Has he been kidnapped?
Because of his keen observation skills, Nick uncovers his grandfather’s hiding place for his tradecraft equipment. Assisted by a young local waitress, Rejhana, Nick begins to search for Joe but soon finds they are being pursued by very persistent and menacing people. An alarming chase across the icy rooftops of Berlin is only the beginning of Nick and Rejhana’s perils.
Brian Falkner’s novel is fast-moving and full of action, with a cast of ruthless killers in hot pursuit of the two teenagers. Nick finds he has unexpected resourcefulness and Rejhana (survivor of a Serbian massacre) has hidden depths. Together they show initiative and courage in their efforts to save Joe’s life.
While Spider Games is full of violent encounters, there are also very funny moments in the story, many of them the result of Nick’s nervousness around self-assured people. When he first encounters Rejhana, Nick is calm and confident while he is correcting her quadratic equations but bungles all his attempts at normal conversation. Hoping to praise her pigtails, he says, ‘I like your piglets!’ (In a moving foreword, written in Berlin, Brian Falkner describes his own experience of autism and adds, ‘I wondered how I would react if it was my actual teenage self in one of those daring adventures? I wrote Spider Games to find out.’)
Young readers who like this story of spying and double agents will find that each chapter heading is the wittily altered title of other tales of espionage, which they can enjoy once they have decoded titles ranging from ‘The Night of the Jackal’ to ‘The Spy who Stayed out in the Cold.’
Trevor Agnew
February 2026
