Max in the Land of Lies by Adam Gidwitz (published 2025) is a continuation of Max in the House of Spies. Now Max must fulfill his spy mission in Berlin while also secretly searching for his parents. His story is surprisingly partially educational but foremost it is an action-packed historical fiction story about a clever kid spy. Although I greatly enjoyed both aspects of the book, I can only wonder at this book’s ability standing alone from the other volume. It is clearly a sequel and one needs knowledge of the previous book in order for it to make sense. As it was, it has been long enough since my read of the first book that I didn’t remember some people and references.
Max’s mission includes infiltrating the radio broadcasting station to further the interests of the British in Germany, which is full of propaganda. Max is a loveable character that is remarkably brilliant and thus faces much success. Many of the introduced characters were real people, and fictionalized Max fit in, even while the reader learned about the propaganda system that did deceived the German people. When I say it is educational, I certainly don’t mean obviously so. It was actually a surprise to me, as an adult, to see how many of the characters were real and how much of the system was actually as full of propaganda as it was.
A story about propaganda changing society felt painfully close to home. Unfortunately, our own government Is even now engaging in American propaganda. Max’s story is important so we can see just how a whole nation can appear to support such lies, one inactive person at a time. We mustn’t let it happen here. Let’s keep truth alive in our society, and reject the lies now and we still can.
I received a digital review copy of this book in 2025.
