Predicting City of the Dead

The City Spies series by James Ponti is getting a new book sometime in February! It will be called City of the Dead, and it’ll be the fourth book. I shared these thoughts and predictions for it on my personal instagram on Monday, but this is a slightly more edited essay-format. (Instagram announcement for the curious; it has the cover and the name.)

Fair warning: spoilers for City Spies, Golden Gate, and Forbidden City ahead. I will try to mark anything really terrible, but just read the books please. I want to talk about them with people, aaaahhh! 

My initial hopes on reading the announcement were for a book about Rio or Kat, given the cover. Personally, I’m hoping for Rio because of the fanfic I’m working on that’s currently about him, Brooklyn, and their friendship, but I would also enjoy a book about Kat because she has a really interesting point of view, and I’d love to see more. The way each book has been focused on one kid so far means that there’s probably going to be a 5th book as well, focusing on whichever character doesn’t star in this book. 

Now, I want to digress briefly into how the other covers connect to their plots; the next 3 paragraphs will have spoilers! 

In City Spies, the cover has Paris, Brooklyn, and Sydney on it. All three play a major role. The story follows Brooklyn’s POV, while Sydney and Paris both save the mission in some way (Sydney’s speech, Paris’s lived experience). The climax partially takes place in front of the Eiffel Tower at the rally, and the Eiffel Tower is on the cover. 

Golden Gate has Sydney, Brooklyn, and Rio on the cover, in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. Sydney is the main POV character, and she has interpersonal conflict with Brooklyn, while Rio’s eating solves a major problem. The climax happens at Fort Point, by the GG bridge.

Forbidden City features the Beijing Olympic stadium (aka the Bird’s Nest), with Kat, Paris, and Brooklyn in front. Brooklyn has some emotional issues, as does Kat (who also solves one of the biggest problems), and Paris is the POV character for this book. And of course the concert that starts off the climax of the book is in the Bird’s Nest.

(End spoilers)

So based on the cover design, I conclude that Kat, Rio, and Brooklyn will have major roles in the story, with Kat or Rio having the primary emotional plot and being the main POV character. The climax will take place in tunnels under the Sphinx in Egypt (from the cover), and it’ll involve them probably confronting Umbra there (K/R/B have flashlights in the cover image and look scared, plus they've got some kind of sound equipment, and Brooklyn has a phone she's looking nervously at). The plot will be resolved when Rio or Kat confronts their emotional issue (Rio: probably where he fits into the team, Kat: likely where she fits into the world), and they use that knowledge to handle a problem better. A subplot will either show Umbra development (like in CS, GG), Mother's journey with his kids (CS, GG), the team's relationship with Char (CS, FC), or something about Monty (GG?).

One plot thread in the larger arc will get a specific resolution, and under the assumption that the series will be books total, I guess that plot will be the team and Char fixing their relationship properly OR Mother will find his kids and book 5 will involve the team figuring out their new relationship with that in the picture. Umbra will certainly only be resolved in the last book. Presumably, that means they fight an Umbra plot here, and whatever the next book is will involve them destroying Umbra for good.

The other, general, things I’d like to see include:

- Rio's origin story (he's the only one of the kids whose origin hasn't been shown in canon beyond mention)

- Kat reconnecting with Charlotte (taking time to build their friendship again. I don't like how FC basically made it seem like her attitude flipped immediately)

- Rio and Brooklyn properly getting to be friends (their friendship is my LIFE, and I’ve been writing fanfic about it)

- Kat and Monty and Brooklyn bonding over tech/math/stem in general (it's not gonna happen if this one's set in Egypt, but I would love to see them go to a computer conference together)

- any of the kids having to deal with managing friendships and spying (if it's Char, it doesn't count, because she already knows)

- Mother/Monty bonding or showing that bond (in a platonic way. Preferably, I want confirmation that Mother is bi and Monty is lesbian, but I doubt I’m ever going to get that)

- The return of: Fletcher (GG), Magpie (GG), Park Dae-Jung (FC), Frankie Lloyd (FC), the other kids on the Kinloch team (CS), Reggie from the Three Lions (CS)

- more Tru backstory (cause she's the coolest)

- more development on the Mother/Clementine/Annie/Robert issue emotionally (I want to see Mother decide Clementine wasn't worth it but his kids were. That’s never going to happen but I can hope. I am anti-Clementine)

And the things I don’t want:

- Clementine to reveal everything was for a good reason (I hate her guts)

- Monty and Mother to have any kind of non platonic relationship (Monty is lesbian and I will fight anyone who disagrees with me. Also they’re just friends.)

- the Charlotte situation to get an easy resolution or be treated as resolved (it shouldn't be as easy to resolve as FC made it seem)

- any romantic relationships with the kids (even Paris shouldn’t have a relationship yet, they're all too young)

- a resolution to anything with Umbra, unless it’s only stopping the specific plot