The novel Uncaged is going to be released on July 22. It’s the product of a joint effort between bestselling author John Sandford and Michele Cook, and is the first installment of the Singular Menace series, which just might become the new teen sensation.

A teenage computer geek named Odin becomes involved with a bunch of radical animal rights activists, and participates in a raid on an animal research lab. During the raid, Odin finds some flash drives which give him interesting information about the Singular corporation. Supposedly, Singular is using the research lab to investigate Parkinson’s disease — which, according to the flash drives, is nothing more than a cover for the real motives of the corporation. Odin learns that CEO “Sync” Creighton is willing to kill in order to keep his experiments secret.

At first, the plot of Uncaged seems unoriginal and rather simplistic, and for the first few chapters I was expecting nothing more than an average piece of work with an equally average environmental message at its core. I confess that I put the book down for two days in the middle of the second chapter in an attempt to steel myself against what I was predicting to be an extremely mediocre read. However, as I continued, I came to realize that Sandford and Cook’s style is wonderfully realistic, and they both have a fantastic eye for character development.

Though the story unfolds through the eyes of multiple characters, the hero of Uncaged is undoubtedly Shay Remby, a smart, paranoid, and more than capable teenager who has been separated from her brother (the previously mentioned Odin) by the foster care system after their parents’ death. When Singular begins pursuing Odin, with the intention of both recovering the flash drives and eliminating the person who has managed to steal them, Shay sets off on a mission to protect her brother from Singular. She is an awesome, kick-ass heroine who isn’t defined solely by her heroism — she’s human. She has human fears and human flaws, but she’s also an amazing character who is willing to go to Hell and back to save her brother.

Following Shay on my favorites list is West, an Afghanistan veteran who lost both legs above the knee and decided to work for Singular after receiving a set of highly-functioning prosthetics from them. West is one of the most interesting characters in Uncaged: he’s almost like a Jedi knight who has been unknowingly seduced to the Dark Side, following a rock-hard belief that Singular is making more of these amazing prosthetics for disabled veterans like himself. Shay’s quest to protect her brother, and what Singular asks West to do in the name of stopping her, makes the veteran begin to doubt his allegiances. Though West is at first aligned with Singular, he never comes across as a villain. Rather, he’s a good person who is unwittingly playing for the wrong team, and I was internally cheering for him when he came to realize the truth about the Singular corporation.

Another interesting character playing for Team Evil (though definitely more firmly entrenched there) is Harmon, Sync’s right hand man. Like West, Harmon is a former soldier; though he still has both of his biological legs and possesses neither the righteousness nor the slowly-blossoming doubt that West does. Harmon is a full-on villain, except for one instance where he seems unwilling to fully support Singular: when he first learns that the corporation is willing to kill children in order to achieve its goals. It’s possible that Harmon might start playing his own game later on in the series, independent of both Shay and Singular, and when the next book comes out I am definitely going to be keeping an eye on him.

Next to the characters is the world that Sandford and Cook have created: a realistic portrayal of the underbelly of Hollywood. From the descriptions of a street kid’s weathered, too-old face to the leering suggestions of the desk manager at a payment-by-the-hour hooker hostel in Stockton, California, it’s easy to immerse yourself in the world that these two writers have created for their characters. The lengths that Shay goes to to keep herself hidden from Singular, and the amount of thought that Sandford and Cook have put into writing such an evasion, give the book a feeling of guerrilla warfare against an enormous, shadowy opponent. Shay, Odin, West, Harmon, and Sync plot and watch and take action against each other in a world that is sometimes dark and sometimes brutally unfair, and it both hurts them and helps them along the way.

Overall, Uncaged isn’t afraid to shy away from reality, but nor does it mire itself in an endless cycle of doom and gloom. I enjoyed it immensely and can’t wait for the next installment of the Singular Menace series.