London Calling

City Spies #6

by James Ponti

In this sixth installment in the New York Times bestselling series from Edgar Award winner James Ponti, the young group of spies stage a rescue in Rome.

Cairo, the newest member of the City Spies, takes the lead when his sister disappears in Istanbul. Determined to save the family of one of their own, the team risks discovery as their search leads them to Rome. Meanwhile, there’s been intel that seems to threaten the royal wedding about to take place in Westminster, bringing the team back to the UK on an official case for MI6. With so much security all over the city, it’s harder than ever for the City Spies to go unnoticed. Will their skills be up to the task?

Genres: Middle Grade, Mystery, Adventure, Audiobook, Fiction, Espionage, Childrens

1 pages, Audio CD

Published February 4, 2025

About the author

James Ponti is the New York Times Bestselling author of three Middle Grade book series: the DEAD CITY trilogy about a secret society that polices the undead who live beneath New York City; the Edgar Award-winning FRAMED! series about a pair of Sherlockian tweens who solve mysteries in Washington, D.C.; and the all-new CITY SPIES about an unlikely squad of five kids from around the world who form an elite MI6 spy team.

James grew up in Atlantic Beach, Florida and lives in Orlando. He's a die hard fan of the Boston Red Sox, the USC Trojans, and the Italian National Soccer Team. He loves travel, writing, and spending time with his amazing family.

Reviews

[Jasmine from How Useful It Is]

Excellent story and audiobook! Full of humor, action and adventures! Smart kids and smart computer. Lots of clues and puzzles. Espionage.

I enjoyed this story and series greatly! I have got my kid, niece and nephew into it.

This story started with Annie, Mother's real daughter. Bad guys were chasing her. She ran and was in hiding. She and her brother used to consider themselves Hansel and Gretel so as she hid, she left bread crumbs along as clues for him to find. Her brother, Robert aka Cairo is currently with Mother and their adopted brothers and sisters. Half of the family went to search for Annie and half of the family went undercover to protect the bride before the royal wedding.

In this story readers finally got some explanations for the mysterious Clementine, which is Annie and Robert's mom who is Mother's wife. Readers also have a view of the bad guy, the leader.

The spy characters are ages ranging from 11 to 16. It seems they stayed the same age in every book. Nevertheless, they are geniuses and it's fun to follow geniuses around.

Thank you SimonKids and Simon Audio for the opportunity to read, listen, and review.

[Bookaboo Owl]

Book releasing February 24 2025
This book hasn't come out yet so I'll re-review but I'm just writing to say how excited I am!! These are my comfort books and London is my favorite city so this is going to be good!

[Charleigh (Jesus' Version)]

"Beny, you are my dear friend and I love you. You have done so many amazing things, but now it is time for you to get some well-deserved sleep. Dream well."

IT WAS AMAZING!!! I got it the day it came out and read it all in one day because it was so good!! This one was definitely one of the best in the series! The writing was great and kept me on my toes, especially the parts with Clementine.

Rio, Kat, and Brooklyn are usually my favorite characters in these books, but I really liked Sydney and Cairo in this one. Annie was sort of a new character in this book and I LOVED her. I really want her to be a spy and live with Mother though so it was a little sad. 😞 But I still really liked her and the Shakespeare/Julius Caesar death clue she left was really cool.

I LOVE CLEMENTINE!!! I have been wanting to know if she's good or bad for soooooo long and I think she's good though I'm not 100% sure...She is so interesting and makes the story really interesting and excellent. Her plan to get Le Fantome arrested was really clever.

I really hope there's a seventh book (with maybe Annie as the main character?). I also think it would be so cool if Mother, Clementine, Annie, Robert/Cairo, Sydney, Paris, Rio, Kat, Brooklyn, and Monty (and Beny) could all live together, spies or not.

The storyline with Beny was also really cool <3 definitely five stars ✨✨✨

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Beth Anne]

It is so rare for every book in a series to be equally good, but James Ponti has done it once again with this 6th installment in City Spies!

This book did a great job of answering a lot of questions from previous books, some going back as far as the first book, and I really loved how we've gotten to see the characters grow over the course of 18 months in these stories. I'm thrilled that there will be (at least two) more books! I didn't listen to the audio this time because my daughter was listening at the same time as me, but I heard several parts and it's another fantastic narration by Lisa Flanagan.

I really love how these stories can be enjoyed by all ages. I'd have no issues with any kid listening to these as early as they wanted, but my teens are still loving them too. And I loved that when I finished, my kids were dying to talk with me about different things that happened in this one and speculating for what is to come.

These are forever family favorites for us!

[Julie J.]

ENGLISH VERSION BELOW

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London Calling hat bei mir genau das geliefert, was ich an City Spies so mag: cleverer Humor, viel Tempo, echte Rätsel- und Hinweisarbeit – und dabei Spionage, die sich nicht wie „Kinder tun so als ob“ anfühlt. Richtig stark ist, wie Ponti im 6. Band alte Fäden zusammenzieht (teilweise bis zurück zum ersten Teil) und nebenbei zeigt, wie sehr die Truppe in diesen 18 Monaten gewachsen ist.
Ich hab es wieder als Hörbuch gehört – sie sind so unglaublich gut gelesen!
Diese Reihe bleibt einfach über alle Bände gleich stark. Bald kommt Band 7 und ich freu mich schon sehr darauf.

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London Calling gave me exactly what I love about City Spies: clever humor, a fast pace, and real puzzle-and-clue work—plus espionage that never feels like “kids playing pretend.” What really stands out is how Ponti, in book six, pulls old threads together (some all the way back to the first book) while also showing just how much the team has grown over these 18 months.
I listened to it as an audiobook again—and it’s unbelievably well narrated!
This series just stays consistently strong across every installment. Book 7 is coming soon, and I’m really looking forward to it.

[Melissa Carnegie]

Excellent storyline with lots of twists and turns! Can't wait for the next book in the series.

[Natalie]

Such a fun series! I highly recommend this book for classrooms. James Ponti is a great author for kids. (and adults!)

Things are really heating up in this book. Annie, Mother's biological daughter, is in trouble. Someone is after her and now she's all alone on the run. Things are tricky enough that Clementine comes out of hiding to ask Mother for help on something he can't refuse - saving his daughter.

The team revs into action. While the boys head into the field to follow Annie's path, the girls stay home and monitor things digitally, but the bad guys are closer than anyone imagined.

This book finally gives us some resolution regarding Clementine and the choices she made. I don't know that it was satisfying, but it was good to know.

Clementine is a double agent, but she's been playing a dangerous game. The bad guys don't trust her anymore, which is why they're going after Annie - they want Clementine to fall in line. Annie is brilliant and escapes. She doesn't want to join the spy team, but she ends up liking them in spite of herself.

The saddest thing is that they lose their headquarters. The bad guys get in and they have to blow up Benny to protect their data. It wasn't Clementine, though, it was some adult spies who betrayed them.

[Lynette]

This book was SO GOOD! When i heard that there was a 6th book coming out I was SOOO EXCITED!! And James Ponti did not disappoint! I loved reading more about Clementine and Annie!! After finishing this book, I am already ready for the next!

[Jen Petro-Roy]

I love this series.

[Jessie Clough]

The brilliant feel good adventure I needed this week

[shakirah]

hopefully another book comes out although this feels like the ending :/ i just expected it to be a bit more exciting and not so easy but regardless i had fun reading it !

[Honora]

Wow, okay so I just binge read this over the last two-ish hours...in one sitting (I rarely read books in one sitting). It's been so cute watching all of the team members grow throughout the series. 🥹 This is the first book I remember finding typos in (I found five, I think 😶), but still it was so gooddd.

I do think that at this rate I'll still be reading these books when I'm thirty (assuming James Ponti continues the series for a very long time). If I have kids someday...oh yeah, they'll be reading these.

[Maimai Li]

aahahahahahaah i had really high hopes for this book... I was really excited about it :(((
The first part of the book was really exiting; finding out about Annie, exploring Clementine's personality. Everything was in the perfect conflict-order environment, but then after when Beny was blown up, the book started falling apart. Basically Clementine's arrest, chasing James Fissell, and the end was all done in 20-30ish pages....It just felt like the author just wanted to wrap to up. I really disliked the ending. Please don't let this be how the series end........

[Laura Thomas]

I love the bonus ending lining out a possible future for each of our kids. I do hope we can pull the team together for more adventures.

[JamesM]

This series is one of my favorite series of all time. Did not dissapoint. this one is my favorite now,

[Emily Frame]

Pretty good!!! It has been a while since I had read the city spies series but this was a great flash back. I highly recommend if you have read the whole series

[Cassandra Hamm]

3.5 stars rounded up.

This is definitely my least favorite of the City Spies books so far, but I still enjoyed it. My main complaint is about the writing style. For whatever reason, this book felt much more distant in style than the other five. The POVs were very distant and there was a lot of head hopping and telling. It should have been much better edited in my opinion. There was also a fair amount of distracting repetition, particularly with the dialogue tag “joked.” I also felt like Cairo, even though he was technically the lead for this book, had very little page time or agency, and I wasn’t particularly surprised by who the traitor was (and I had zero emotional investment in the character). Still, I love the City Spies and I’ll keep reading about them. The plot with Beny was one of my favorite parts of the book, and I liked how Sydney’s passion for fashion was on full display in the studio scene. I now know what a fascinator is because of a bridal shower I went to so I appreciated that part of the story. And I liked Annie’s part of London Calling; her jump was epic, and I appreciated that the book didn’t force her to join the spies. Again, fun story! I just hope the next book is better edited.

[Mary]

This is the sixth book in the City Spies series and like the other books in the series, it is really good. There's a lot going on: the team is working on security for a royal wedding, their computer is being connected to all the computers in the Five Eyes countries, and Mother and Clementine's daughter is missing. This is an energetic, action packed page-turner. Some major stuff happens that impacts the whole team but overall they do what they do best: use all their talents and resources to work together seamlessly. It was wonderful to finally meet Annie and to learn more about Clementine. Is this the last book? I don't think so and I really hope not, but whatever the case, it is a truly fine series. Great fun!

[Jenn]

I just love this little series. I don't read a lot of kidlit, but something about how Ponti writes feels like it's interesting to adults, but still accessible to kids and that feels rare.

London Calling is number six in the City Spies series. This time, Mother's daughter Annie is on the run in Istanbul and the team needs to find her before the bad guys do. At the same time, their super computer Beny is offline and half the team is in London, helping with threats to a royal wedding. But if anyone can shuffle these responsibilities, it's the City Spies.

[Chloe Matysiak]

This book was literally OUT OF THIS WORLD!!! It was so good, but they left it at an awful clip-hanger! I’m SO mad because they don’t have anymore books (currently) for me to read. I wonder what C will give them for a house (still a mystery). I really enjoy reading about Annie, and I hope that she will stay and make up her mind about being a spy. The other thing is, which side is Clementine on? That will be discovered in the next book! Cannot wait!!

[Aly]

This installment was great because we finally learned more about Mother's wife and why she took off with Annie and Cairo in the first place. The missions are always fun, but it was nice to get answers on the personal plot line and have everyone come together. The found family aspect of this is the best part for me and it feels like we're nearing a happy ending for the group.

[Saskia]

Het was weer superspannend met De Wereldspionnen. Deze keer in Istanbul, Rome en Londen. Natuurlijk met een cliffhanger, dus deel 7 komt er vast ook aan. Thomas en ik kunnen niet wachten...

[Addie]

OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THIS EXISTED *HYPERVENTILATING WITH EXCITEMENT TO READ THIS SOON*

[Kenzie Jean]

I loved this book! WE NEED ANOTHER ONE!!!!!! James Ponti, if you are reading this, could the next book be about C getting abducted by Umbra, and the City Spies having to find him? Also, can Clemmie be helping them?

[&#x1f341;~Mimi~&#x1f341;]

Emoji of book: 🌉

[Jessica]

Echt. Deze serie. Zoooo goed! Ik heb ze geluisterd via de Online Bibliotheek, dikke aanrader!

Kom maar op met de volgende! James Bond voor kids. En dan beter, want ik kijk helemaal geen James Bond. ;-)

[Isabel]

AI propaganda :(
they went to Rome :)

[Helen]

What happened, James Ponti????

First 90% of the book was spectacular as usual, 5 stars no notes. And then we went off the rails.

RIGHT as we are about to hit the big epic action showdown, omniscient narrator steps in to tell us "what he DIDN'T know was that other characters had already secretly done this and that!" and then we suddenly fast forward a week later and everyone is reminiscing about how everything went down. What in the world??

I literally had to go back and check if I had accidentally skipped some chapters somehow.

Not sure why the author gave up at the literal finish line but this was the biggest ending letdown I can remember.

2 stars

[Anna Westerfield]

I’m obsessed - it’s creative, adventurous, funny, and wholesome!!!! I need the next book out yesterday

[Trigger Warning Database]

Trigger & Content Warnings

Death of a wife in a burning building recounted
Physical assault (fisticuffs)
Explosion & mentions of bombs
Disappearance of a sibling