The Squad: Perfect Cover -- Jennifer Lynn Barnes

An invitation to an informational meeting about Bayport High's Varsity Spirit Squad is the last thing sophomore Toby Klein expected to find in her locker, but there it is.  Toby is, to put it mildly, not the cheerleading type:  she's a combat boot-wearing black belt who has no problem fighting with the school jocks and she's a brilliant computer hacker.

Even stranger than finding the invite in her locker (which is plenty strange on its own!) is the fact that the invite contains a code:

"Toby, go to class."  Mr. J's words interrupted my train of thought.  Obediently, I turned in the direction of the history room, and suddenly, the correct anagram of the scrambled letters fell into place.

CURIOUS YET?

I hated to admit it, but by the time I broke the news of my vice-principalian pardon to my faculty nemesis, I definitely was.

Since when did cheerleaders write in code?

Turns out that Bayport High's varsity Spirit Squad is a whole lot more than they seem to be -- they're actually government agents.  Because, as the team captain says, "Who's going to suspect the cheerleaders?"

The first in a series, Perfect Cover is an entertaining, light read.  It's got action and suspense (though the makeover is harder for Toby than any of the spy stuff), a bit of romance and plenty of comic relief.  The dialogue occasionally felt somewhat stilted, but regardless, it'd be a good pick for fans of Ally Carter's books.  It's just screaming to be turned into a television series.

My favorite part was actually in the acknowledgments, when Jennifer Lynn Barnes dedicated the book to anyone who'd ever been underestimated.  It's nice to see a book about cheerleaders who are something more than Beautiful Mean Girls.