'The Battle of the Labyrinth' by Rick Riordan

A Young Adult Novel

Rick Riordan

Hyperion Books for Children: 362 pp., $17.99

GREEK myths have long inspired storytellers, but it took author Rick Riordan to bring them roaring to life for the middle-school crowd with his action-packed, wisecracking "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series.

It began with 2005's "The Lightning Thief," in which 12-year-old Percy, a hyperactive New York boy with dyslexia who lives with a single mother, learns that his absent father is Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. With deft touches, Riordan set the stage: The ancient gods are alive, scheming and siring demigod children with mere mortals. Mt. Olympus now looms above the Empire State Building and the Underworld sits below -- surprise! -- Los Angeles. Medusa, the Furies, the Laistrygonians (giant cannibals) and other monsters stalk the Earth, determined to kill the young demigods, who gather at Camp Half-Blood off Long Island Sound each summer to hone ancient martial arts.

"The Battle of the Labyrinth," the fourth in the series, is a glorious, no-holds-barred adventure with great plot twists, a melding of ancient and bionic technology and a cliffhanger ending that will have fans eagerly awaiting the fifth and final showdown between gods and monsters next year.

Riordan's genius is in reimagining classic myths for the 21st century, making them relevant to young adult readers while staying true to the spirit of the originals. "Battle of the Labyrinth" focuses on the sinister maze where Theseus slew the Minotaur. But the labyrinth isn't under a palace in Crete anymore; it lies just below the mortal world, where "it's been growing for thousands of years, lacing its way under Western cities, connecting everything together underground."

With its secret entrances, exits, dead ends, shifting paths and lurking monsters, the labyrinth is a death trap but also a potent weapon for anyone who can navigate it, especially demigod Luke Castellan, a son of Hermes who is trying to liberate Kronos, the Titan king whom the Olympians cut into tiny pieces and banished to Tartarus eons ago. When both sides discover that the labyrinth's 2,000-year-old creator, Daedalus, is still alive and hiding in its center, the race is on to see who finds him first.