Peter and the Sword of Mercy by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry

Summary (from goodreads.com): The year is 1901--it's been twenty-three years since Peter and the Lost Boys returned from Rundoon. Since then, nobody on the island has grown a day older, and the Lost Boys continue their friendship with the Mollusk tribe, and their rivalry with Captain Hook. Meanwhile in London, Molly has married George Darling and is raising three children: Wendy, Michael, and John. One night a visitor appears at her door; it's James, one of Peter's original Lost Boys. He is now working for Scotland Yard and suspects that the heir to England's throne, Prince Albert Edward, is under the influence of shadow creatures. These shadow creatures are determined to find a secret cache of startstuff which fell to London many centuries ago. The starstuff is hidden in an underground vault which has only one key: the Sword of Mercy, a legendary weapon kept with the Crown Jewels. Molly is determined to help, but when she suddenly goes missing, it is up to her eleven-year-old daughter, Wendy, to keep the starstuff out of the Others' clutches. She has heard her mother's stories of a flying boy named Peter Pan, and he may be her only hope in saving the world from a shadowy doom... 

Let me start out by saying how happy I was when I stumbled across this in my library. "What's this?" I asked myself, "A FOURTH Peter and the Starcatchers book?!" I had to restrain myself or I would have started jumping up and down. I was so surprised because it was originally a trilogy, and it hadn't even crossed my mind that there would be a fourth one. Kind of like Uglies and Extras. The first three books are prequels to Peter Pan and explain things like why Peter can fly and how Hook lost his hand. This one is more of a retelling of sorts, set over twenty years after the trilogy ended.

I must say that I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first three, but it was still very good. Where as originally we had three books to get to know and love the characters this time there was only one, which made it much harder to get to know them. I found myself sympathizing with the secondary familiar characters more than with the new main characters. The main villain in this book is the original villain, which I liked. There was also a nice little side story set on the island, where the main story was in London. The writing is seamless and it jumps from character to character with ease. It's one of those books where it gives you a glimpse of what the bad guy is thinking every once in a while, which really heightens the urgency.

This series is one of my favorites. They're great if you want a clever, funny, and exciting action book to read. There isn't much romance because the main characters are only twelve-ish, but everything else makes up for it. I definitely enjoyed reuniting with old characters in this one, because they're some of my favorite characters from a book series. I just didn't connect with the new ones.

Overall: This book was a nice addition to the series, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first three. 4 Stars!