Spy Mice is the name of a rodent spy organization.
Officially it is Spy Mice Agency (SMA). It has its headquarters, rather appropriately, in the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. We are told right off that this was a wonderful "mouse-friendly work environment" as "the conduits that channeled all the electronic wires and cables for telephone, computer, audio, and video connections throughout the building not only allowed the SMA access to state-of-the-art equipment but also doubled as a series of superhighways along which mice, especially field agents - equipped with skateboards - could travel quite comfortably".
[FYI, in the case of the skateboard used by one of the agents, the very lovely female operative named Glory, it was "expertly fashioned from a lolly stick and the wheels of a broken toy car, painted flamingo pink, thanks to the remains of a discarded bottle of nail polish". The rodent technicians who create the tools and gadgets and vessels used in the field are pretty ingenious.]
There are apparently a fair number of mice agents working at SMA but the one that we follow throughout all three adventures in this trilogy is Morning Glory Goldenleaf, Glory to her friends. She is a fairly new agent just getting over a major oops on an assignment; she made it back safely and successfully but enough things had gone wrong, she was extra nervous about any further mishaps lest she be drummed out of the SMA.
Glory is the daughter on one of the most famous operatives that SMA ever had and she is thrilled to be able to serve in the same organization that he had. She also wants to use as much of her free time as she can to see if she can find out what happened to her father who disappeared just a short while before the first recorded adventure of his daughter.
Since Glory is the main agent that we follow, it is important to note that she has a personal secret she works hard to keep, namely that she is a half-breed being the daughter of a field mouse (her father) and a house mouse (her mother). Apparently that is not only rare, it is something deserving to keep hidden.
Also part of the SMA and getting plenty of mention in these adventures are:
Bunsen - a lab-mouse-turned-field-agent, newly promoted out of the lab and into that field, who is very much enamored with Glory and she slowly comes around to like him.
B-Nut - the 'B' stands for Butter as in Butternut, a junior agent and younger brother of Glory. He really specializes in aerial reconnaissance.
Julius - another SMA spy and a major rival to Glory, not to mention being a major pain in the backside to her. He is both a snitch and a brown-noser.
Fumble - Glory's boss and the head of the SMA office they all work out of. This friendly but determined leader seems to always have the weight of the mouse world on his shoulders.
Providing the most trouble to plague the SMA is the notorious Rat Underworld, especially Roquefort Dupont, leader of Washington's rat criminals and said to be the cruelest, most despicable rodent on the face of the planet.
And then there is Oz Levinson.
Oz is a human, a student at Chester B. Arthur Elementary in Washington, DC. Tagged 'Blubberbutt' by his bully tormenters at school and, once they found he was a fan of James Bond and spies in general, Double-O-Lard. His father is the new manager of the museum's Spy City Cafe. Since the move from California, Oz has spent every afternoon after school in museum which is why, two months later, he is pretty familiar with the facility. Being 12 years old, Oz's dream of being just like 007 are way outside of possible and he knows it but he still dreams.
That dream will become just a little (literally and figuratively) more possible when while hiding from his bullies, he runs into Glory Goldenleaf heading to a meeting at HQ. Actually, she ran into him. One of his feet. He screamed in surprise, she screamed in embarrassment. He wonders aloud whether this little rodent with what looked like a skateboard was alright as the critter lay on the floor. She accidentally and automatically responded she had "just a little road rash".
And that is how Oz would learn that most mice can talk. And read. And be spies.
And it is how he will find himself on several occasions helping a little girl mouse secret agent save the world.
Good Lines:
- Blurb on the inside of the first adventure - "WARNING: This book will self-destruct if it falls into the wrong hands. Make that paws. Rat paws. [You know who you are.]"