Final hours.
He could not see the future, but one thing seemed absolutely crystal clear: If Amy died because of this decision, he would never be able to live with himself.
Flashpoint is the fourth and final book in the third series of The 39 Clues, Unstoppable.
Tick-tock. Sixteen-year-old Amy Cahill only has few days left to live. There’s a poison coursing through her, and her only chance is to collect ingredients for an antidote. Too bad the antidote ingredients are scattered around the world. And too bad that survival is by far Amy’s smallest problem.
The antidote she needs is also the only thing capable of stopping a deadly enemy. J. Rutherford Pierce is on the brink of becoming the most powerful man in the world, and if he does, no one will be safe. Amy and her younger brother, Dan, will do everything it takes to bring Pierce down. Even if Amy must pay the ultimate price.
Tropes:
- Break the Haughty: After every rotten deed Pierce has done with absolute bravado, he is reduced to a tear-filled wreck in this book.
- Implied Death Threat: During the clambake, Rutherford tells Mary Ann that he wishes he had a wife like Letitia Tyler. Processing this, she realizes that Rutherford wants to kill her later, because in real life, Letitia Tyler died while John Tyler was still the U.S. president.
- Red Herring: Ever since Amy took the Master Serum in the previous book, there have many death flags for her, as the two previous users of the Master Serum, Gideon Cahill and Isabel Kabra, died not long after consuming it, and she gave Dan leadership over the Cahills in case she dies. This book's aforementioned summary gets in on this vibe, and appears to building up to her inevitable demise by the Master Serum's poisonous effects. Fortunately, she has the antidote delivered Just in Time and survives.
- Series Continuity Error: A poster promoting a concert tour from Jonah Wizard shows 2014 on there (the year the book was released), even though this book takes place in 2011.
- Take Up My Sword: Amy and Dan finally leave the Cahill family, now in the hands of Ian and Cara.
- The Reveal: April May is actually Cara Pierce.
- Trauma Conga Line: To recap, J. Rutherford Pierce undergoes the following:
- Fails to stop the plane carrying the Cahills.
- Loses his Master Serum abilities due to Amy's plane dropping the aerosol serum antidote.
- Watches his clambake turn to shit.
- Is caught on television cameras shoving his wife aside.
- Drinks Ovaltine instead of his Master Serum protein shakes, which were poured down the drain by his daughter.
- Has his nuclear bomb plan stopped by the daughter of the woman who rejected him.
- Has his Presidential party (The Patriotist Party) disbanded.
- Becomes a joke on late-night talk shows.
- Oh, and he gets a sandwich mockingly named after him. As it's described: "The Pierce: bologna and Limburger on a Kaiser roll, hold the mayo and your nose".
- Wham Line: The Serum antidote is finally made, and Nellie asks Amy to roll up her sleeve in order to inject it into her. Amy's response?"No."
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: In regards to Amy having the Master Serum's effects. The gang reunite safely with Nellie and Sammy, and, with the ingredients they collected, synthesize the Serum antidote for Amy to be cured. But then Amy delivers the aforementioned Wham Line, justifying her refusal being that her Serum abilities can be very useful when steering the plane, containing the Serum antidote, towards Pierce's clambake.
