Spy High

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Spy High is a series of young adult books by British author AJ Butcher, published between 2003 and 2005, about a gang of teens who attend the prestigious Deveraux College - really a school for the training of young spies. The books focus on the six members of "Bond Team": Ben, Lori, Jake, Eddie, Cally and Jennifer, later replaced with Bex. There are two individual series in the franchise - in series one the heroes are teenagers training at Deveraux College, whereas in the second series they are adults venturing out on independent missions for the first time.

The Books are:

  1. Series one
    1. The Frankenstein Factory
    2. The Chaos Connection (US: Chaos Rising)
    3. The Serpent Scenario
    4. The Paranoia Plot
    5. The Soul Stealer (US: Blood Relations)
    6. The Annihilation Agenda
  2. Series two
    1. Edward Red
    2. Angel Blue
    3. Benjamin White
    4. Calista Green
    5. Jake Black
    6. Agent Orange
Tropes used in Spy High include:


  • Above the Influence - Jake to Dark in Jake Black.
  • Action Girl - All four of the Bond Team girls count, though Cally takes the role less often than the others.
  • Arrogant Kung Fu Girl - How Jennifer starts the series, although she had mellowed out slightly by the time of her death.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot - Jonathan Deveraux in Agent Orange, though foreshadowed in previous books.
  • Alliterative Name - Calista "Cally" Cross.
  • Applied Phlebotinum - The Pendragon Virus, for one.
  • Asian Airhead - Jennifer is a borderline Type One
  • Back from the Dead - Jennifer, briefly, in The Paranoia Plot. Also the whole team minus Bex in Agent Orange, though they weren't technically dead. Ben in Benjamin White is presumed dead at the end of the book, but returns in Calista Green.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Between Ben and Cally. Guess who his love interest turns out to be.
  • Berserk Button - Nobody's allowed to be killed on Jake's watch. Ever.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience - The team's official codenames after graduation are Edward Red, Angel Blue (Lori), Benjamin White, Jake Black, Callista Green and Agent Orange (Bex). The second series of books is titled accordingly. We never find out what colour Jennifer would have been, though it's possible she was the original Orange.
  • Crapsack World
  • Darker and Edgier - The second series of books, in which Bond Team are adult spies on their first solo missions. Jake Black is probably the Darkest and Edgiest is gets though.
  • Death by Origin Story - Jennifer's family, all killed by Talon because they refused to pay menaces money.
  • Dragon Lady - Kim Tang in The Serpent Scenario
  • Duel to the Death - Several throughout the series. Talon has two in The Serpent Scenario, one with Jennifer, which he wins, and one with Jake, which he loses spectacularly. There's two in The Soul Stealer as well: Ben takes on Jake in a Good Versus Good duel (they do the same in Angel Blue), before Ben takes on his uncle Alex at the end.
  • Five-Man Band
  • Five-Token Band - We have Oirish Eddie, super-wealthy Ben, wrong-side-of-the-tracks Jake, African-American Cally, Chinese-American Jennifer and rebel Bex.
  • Frozen in Time - Averted; the heroes age from 16-17ish to early 20s over the course of the books.
  • Heroic BSOD - Every book. Literally, every single one.
  • Hollywood Hacking - Cally, possibly justified with the futuristic setting.
  • Hotter and Sexier - Series two showed that some characters were in sexual relationships, although nothing takes place on the pages.
  • Hypothetical Casting - The author is on record as saying that if the books were ever to be made into a movie, he would want Anna Kournikova to play Lori. Also counts as What the Hell Casting Agency, since Kournikova is a tennis player - not an actress.
  • Jerk Jock - Ben fits this trope in every way but for the fact that we never really see him play a sport. It's mentioned that he does play, however, and he's highly skilled at physical tasks during Bond Team's training.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold - Jake
  • Killed Off for Real - Jennifer in series one. She's temporarily resurrected, but chooses to die again when she realises her body is just an empty shell now. Simon is later Killed Off for Real as well.
  • Lego Genetics - A major part of the first book.
  • Line-of-Sight Name - Cally, abandoned as a baby, was given the surname "Cross" because she was found with a crucifix necklace on her.
  • Moral Dilemma - Jake faces on of these throughout Jake Black, where he is tasked with killing international terrorist leader Sicarius, since he is sick of criminals escaping jail once incarcerated. Eventually brings in shades of If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him as well, when Lori shows up.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Eddie.
  • Official Couple - Ben/Lori, Jake/Jennifer and Eddie/Bex (series one), Ben/Cally, Eddie Rose and Lori/Robbie (series two.)
  • One Steve Limit - Averted. There is a Sonia Dark on Solo Team and also a girl codenamed Dark in the Black Ops Division.
  • Plucky Comic Relief - Eddie, who doubles as a Deadpan Snarker.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni - Ben and Jake
  • Redemption Equals Death - Quite a few examples, including Kim Tang in the first series, Clone!Jennifer and Simon Macey.
  • Sassy Black Woman: Cally.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money - Ben
  • School for Scheming - Deveraux College is a cover for the training of young spies.
  • Sexy Discretion Shot - Ben and Cally get one at the end of Calista Green.
  • Six-Student Clique - Played deliciously straight.
    • The Head -- Ben
    • The Muscle -- Jake
    • The Quirk -- Eddie
    • The Pretty One -- Lori
    • The Smart One -- Cally (who has notable similarities to Saved by the Bell's Lisa, who is Trope Codifier for the Wild One.)
    • The Wild One -- Jennifer (and later Bex, after Jennifer dies)
  • So Beautiful It's a Curse - Lori
  • Steven Ulysses Perhero - Many of the villains, most notably Vlad Tepesch (named for real-life warlord Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes, the basis for the fictional Dracula). He even manufactures a highly addictive drug called "Drac" which drains addicts of their blood.
  • Survivor Guilt - Cally gets a strong case of this after Ben is believed dead in Calista Green. Ben's mother deliberately tries to invoke the trope with You Should Have Died Instead.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute - Bex for Jennifer
  • Teen Superspy - The whole premise of the first series, though they're adults in the second.
  • The Rival - Simon of Solo Team is this to Ben. Could also make an argument for Jake and Ben in the earlier books.
  • Time Skip - Between the first and second series
  • Tough Room: Eddie is often subjected to this.
  • True Love Is Exceptional - Ben's true love turns out to be Cally, a far cry from the previous girls he'd dated, who were all equally as privileged as him (including Lori.)
  • Tuckerization - Kate Taylor in Agent Orange is named after a reader called Kate Harrison, who had won a fan contest to appear in the book.
  • United Europe - The books feature a European super-state known as "Europa"
  • Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Political? - The plot of Edward Red seems to mimic the very real contemporary problem Britain has over what distance they should maintain, if any, from the rest of Europe, as well as the issue of becoming a part of the global European currency.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic - In the plot of Jake Black, theBig Bad's plan is to merge an alternate, "chaos" dimension with ours, causing the world to be submerged in darkness. The final battle between him and Jake takes place on a bridge that extends over the top of this surging darkness Bearing in mind that the entire plot of the story so far has revolved around whether or not Jake would finally descend into "darkness" and kill the villain...yeah.
  • When You Coming Home, Dad? - Bex's father is the headmaster of the Deveraux College and rarely had time for her while she was growing up, even when she became a student at the school herself. The most time they get to spend together is in Agent Orange when he turns out to be the Big Bad and she's trying to save the world from him.
  • You Gotta Have Green Hair - Bex's hair is frequently dyed green, among other varied colours.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters - The rebels Ben allies himself with in Benjamin White to overthrow the Tepesch regime.
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