The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey is the sequel to The Mysterious Benedict Society. Because both books are mystery novels, the characters must solve a wide variety of puzzles to succeed. In the first book, 11-year-old Reynard “Reynie” Muldoon is an especially clever orphan who answers a newspaper ad for gifted children and aces a series of difficult tests using his critical-thinking and observation skills. He is selected to join Mr. Benedict’s secret mission along with three other children. Sticky is selected because of his extraordinary memory and ability to read quickly, while Kate is chosen for her physical strength, agility, and problem-solving abilities. Constance is selected because of her stubbornness and her unusual approach to the tests. At first, the other children are perplexed by Constance’s tantrums and frequent need to nap, but they later learn that she is only two years old.

The children befriend Mr. Benedict, Milligan, Rhonda Kazembe, and Number Two. They initially mistake Rhonda for a child, but she is really an adult woman. Number Two resembles a pencil and has to eat constantly to make up for the fact that she barely sleeps. The children then infiltrate the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened (LIVE), an organization run by Ledroptha Curtain. LIVE inserts subliminal messages in television programs to brainwash the populace. Mr. Curtain maintains his control using a device called The Whisperer. The children are shocked to learn that Mr. Curtain is Benedict’s identical twin brother. Both men have narcolepsy, but while Mr. Benedict’s is usually triggered by laughter, Mr. Curtain falls asleep if he gets too angry. Kate, Reynie, Sticky, and Constance successfully defeat Mr. Curtain after several misadventures, becoming acquainted with his frightening associates in the process. These associates include Jackson and Jillson; an unpleasant young girl named Martina Crowe; Mr. Curtain’s clumsy assistant, S.Q. Pedalian; and the businessmen who will later become the Ten Men. All of these characters also appear in The Perilous Journey.

At the end of The Mysterious Benedict Society, the children learn that Milligan is actually Kate’s father; Mr. Curtain wiped his memories many years earlier. Kate and Milligan are reunited. Sticky ran away from home because his parents put too much academic pressure on him, but they reconcile. Miss Perumal, Reynie’s former tutor at the orphanage, adopts him, and Mr. Benedict starts the process of adopting Constance. All of this information is more or less taken for granted at the beginning of The Perilous Journey, which is set one year after the first novel. By this point, the children have grown and matured in the intervening time. Some of the issues that the characters face carry over into the third book in the series, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Most notably, Constance is distressed that Mr. Benedict has not yet been able to legally adopt her, as her past remains a mystery.