Everyone’s favorite super-skilled spy team is about to embark on their SIXTH thrilling international adventure in City Spies: London Calling by James Ponti, hitting shelves on February 4th!
Whether you’ve been traveling alongside this beloved group of MI6 operatives since the beginning or this is your first introduction to the series, there’s something for every reader to enjoy. The City Spies series never fails to deliver an electrifying, page-turner, and London Calling promises high-stakes thrills, heart-pounding adventure, and lots of laugh-out-loud moments that will make you feel like you’re right there in the action alongside the team.
This team of tech-savvy, highly trained, whip-smart kids is facing a dual mission this time around. When newbie Cairo’s sister Annie disappears and is believed to be kidnapped, the gang races from Istanbul to Rome, chasing the clues to locate her – but it’s a risky mission that puts their identities in danger of being discovered. On the more official side of things, the team rushes to Westminster when intel suggests sinister plans are targeting the royal family and putting the royal wedding under threat. But with extra security all over London, they’ll have to be extra stealthy and put all their skills to the test to pull off their mission and go unnoticed to save the day.
In this sixth installment in the New York Times bestselling series from Edgar Award winner James Ponti, the young group of spies stages a rescue in Rome in another international adventure perfect for fans of Spy School and Charlie Thorne.
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?
City Spies: London Calling
AUTHOR: James Ponti
PUBLISHER: Aladdin
DATE: February 4, 2025
One thing that’s for sure? When James Ponti is at the helm, readers are always in for a seriously fun page-turning adventure. The City Spies series is beloved for a reason – it always delivers in every way. The wild adventures will have you turning the pages, but in our opinion, it’s the unbreakable bond between this unlikely group of friends that keeps us coming back book after book and the vivid descriptions of all the locations that make you feel like you’re a seasoned world traveler just by cracking open the cover of a book.
Want a little top-secret intel on the City Spies? We’re honored to share that author James Ponti is taking our readers even deeper into this thrilling series and what goes into crafting a story like City Spies: London Calling!
Author James Ponti Shares 6 Fun Facts About City Spies: London Calling:
CITY NAMES FOR CHARACTERS
When the movie Dead Poets Society came out way back in the late-eighties, I went to see it with my mother. It featured a bunch of kids at a prep school with matching uniforms and similar haircuts. Midway through the film, she turned to me and said, “I can’t tell them apart.” That has always stayed with me. I’ve thought about the frustration of a viewer or reader who has trouble distinguishing characters from each other.
That was on my mind when I first came up with the City Spies series. I knew there was going to be a group of kids going on adventures and constantly talking back and forth. I didn’t want the reader to get confused as to which one was which, which is why I named them after the cities where they’re from. I wanted to use the reader’s existing knowledge. They already know that Brooklyn is in New York, Paris is in France, and Sydney is Australia. So, they can remember where those characters are from and what they are like. That way they have an easier time of keeping track of who is who.
LEGO
I love LEGO projects and often try to tie them into which City Spies book I’m working on as a way to take my mind off figuring out plots. So far, I have built mosaics of the characters and landmarks like the Statue of Liberty (for Mission Manhattan) and a London phone booth (for London Calling.)
EXPERTS FOR RESEARCH
I rely on a lot of research to help the books come to life. Among the experts I’ve interviewed while working on the City Spies books are the former deputy director of the CIA, a US ambassador, and one of the country’s leading Egyptologists. I also try to travel to the locations featured in the books. For research, I have followed the paths the City Spies take in London, Paris, Venice, Rome, Edinburgh, San Francisco, Washington, and New York.
This is essential for multiple reasons. First, it’s important to try to be as accurate as possible because it makes the story more believable and interesting. But when I’m interviewing people, I don’t just want to learn the facts, I want to know what they feel about these situations to get the emotions right too. As for the travel, it’s not just a matter of getting the geography correct, but by visiting them, I’m inspired when I see new and unexpected things I can use in the plot.
SCOOTER RIDE
I was born in Italy and my sister, Barbara, is a tour guide in Rome. I went to visit her and she wanted to drive me around on her scooter, but I told her that my head was too big to fit into a regular helmet. She said she had a large one for me, but it was a total lie. It was tiny, but I still let her drive me around for a bit (terrifying) and posed for this ridiculous picture (humiliating).
I put the scooter ride into London Calling when the team gets help from a tour guide named after Barbara. I even borrowed the helmet gag, but in this instance, I made it too big.
ROYAL WEDDING ETTIQUETTE
The City Spies are part of MI6, which is responsible for intelligence outside of the United Kingdom (as opposed to MI5 which handles things inside the country.) For London Calling, I needed to find a reason for them be operating in London. I learned that MI6 helps out for big events like the Olympics or royal weddings, which is why I put a royal wedding into the plot.
I am very much not a royal wedding type of person, so I dug in on the research component and discovered that people who attend them are given an etiquette booklet that covers everything from what they can wear, whom they can look at and acknowledge, and when they should go to the bathroom. It’s borderline absurd. The booklet for the wedding of Prince William and Princess Kate was twenty-two pages long!
NEIGHBORHOOD TEAM
There are a bunch of great kids who love to read and live in my neighborhood. They are all part of the City Spies street team. I let them read things while I’m writing to get feedback. I quiz them on what they’d like to see. And I draft them into making all sorts of videos like unboxings and other goofy things. I adore them all. (They also get the first copies of each book.)
📚NEED MORE READS?: If kids facing off against sinister world-altering plans is your vibe, peep these Fun Facts about The Doomsday Vault, a twisty time-traveling adventure set at Everwhen, a boarding school for scientists and creative thinkers!
