i thought this, the final book in the trilogy, was a lot stronger than the second one. it is set about six months after the conclusion of the last book. the children are living with their families in mr. benedict's house because mr. benedict is concerned that mr. curtain will try to kidnap them again. mr. benedict also knows that mr. curtain wants to steal back the whisperer in order to control the world. he's set up all kinds of alarm systems & guards to protect the children & the whisperer. he is also setting constance various tasks to see what she can do with her telepathic abilities.

an evil associate of mr. curtain's visits to inform mr. benedict that he is constance's real father. constance flips & demands to have her repressed memories of her real origins extracted by the whisperer. mr. benedict relents, as it's the only way to avoid having constance stolen by the evil associate. i thought constance's back story was super interesting. unfortunately, it discombobulates her & she ends up running away. one of mr. benedict's guards is a spy for mr. curtain & lets her go, thinking it will be easier for mr. curtain to abduct her this way.

while the adults are out searching for constance, mr. curtain creates a city-wide power outage. kate, sticky, & reynie take cover in the cellar of the house across the street while mr. curtain's henchmen bulldoze over mr. benedict's fence & steal back the whisperer...while replacing it with a sabotaged decoy to get mr. benedict in trouble with the government. the kids manage to get their mitts on some clues that lead the way to mr. curtain's next nefarious rendezvous, & constance sends reynie a telepathic message about her whereabouts, but the kids are in too much trouble for running off to the cellar to share their information with any adults. they finally have to slip off again undetected, & reunited with constance, but realize too late that the clues they broke are part of a trap. mr. curtain manages to successfully abduct them.

i won't go into the rest in order to avoid spoilers, but it was all pretty fast-paced & reasonably exciting. i am still not crazy about this book series, but i think it finished well.