Max Tilt: Fire the Depths
Author: Peter Lerangis Publisher: Harper Collins ISBN: 9780062441003
THIS is the kind of book you’d be happy to spend your entire Sunday indulging in. And the best part?
Fire the Depths is just the beginning of what seems to be a promising series that stretches the imaginative legacy of the Jules Verne classics.
In a fictional tale that transcends generations and continents, 13-yearold Max loves facts, being neat, and two of the most important people in his life – his parents. He’s also the great-great-great-grandson of Jules Verne.
Max takes comfort in reading the ‘Every Spectrum is a Rainbow’ label that run across the huge mural of colourful arches on his bedroom ceiling, which took him and his cancersurvivor mum an entire weekend to paint.
When his mother’s condition regresses, his parents leave for a specialised clinic in Minnesota, and entrusts him to the care of cousin Alexandra Verne – travelling from Canada – who’s saving up for college.
The two Vernes soon realise that Max’s parents are drowning in debt, and decide to take matters into their own hands by selling stuff from around the house on the internet.
Finding a hidden room in the attic and an antique chest, and with some code-breaking ingenuity, Max and Alex discover an astonishing family secret – that their famous ancestor’s legendary stories are more fact than fiction.
On top of that, the French writer from generations passed had disclosed clues in a memoir, The Lost Treasures, to treasures he had been protecting from real foes he encountered and wrote about.
The problem is the bad guys, too, have a descendant – in the form of Spencer Niemand.
And he’s right on the duo’s heels, hell-bent on continuing his forefather’s misguided plan of forcing civilisation to relocate underwater.
From sneaking onboard a cruise ship to fighting off giant squids, Fire the Depths certainly checks all boxes for an adventurepacked story.
The notion of the impossible becoming possible applies not only with the scenarios in which author Lerangis presents in this book, but also through his lead protagonists, Max and Alex.
Part of what makes the story a pageturner is the way the cousins draw from each other’s strengths. Their brief encounter as children means you develop a simultaneous relationship with the characters, as Max and Alex’s flourishes.
What you’re left with is the incessant need to keep rooting for them and curious anticipation for what Lerangis has in store for the series. – Marion Fernando