Bodyguard: Ransom

Chris Bradford's Bodyguard: Ransom is a high-stakes action thriller for 11 year olds that sends a teenage bodyguard out onto the Indian Ocean.

What happens

Connor Reeves is fourteen and a buddyguard, a teenager trained to quietly protect other people's children. The trouble is he's just failed his fourth training test in a row (one paintball in his pretend Principal's goggles and it's game over).

So he isn't feeling very sure of himself when the next job comes in. A month guarding the twin daughters of an Australian media billionaire, on their dad's super-yacht around the Seychelles and the Maldives. Sounds like a holiday, doesn't it?

It isn't. One of the twins, Emily, was kidnapped last year and held in the desert for months. Their dad has made a LOT of enemies with his newspapers. And the briefing ends with a video of real pirates firing a rocket launcher at a ship.

Connor isn't the only buddyguard going this time. Ling is coming too, and she's not at all happy about being second-in-charge (she takes it up with him in the boxing ring).

The Buddyguard team are very good company, with loads of teasing between drills. Poor Amir is gutted to be stuck in "wet Wales doing circuits" while Connor heads for the sunshine!

Connor is also worried he isn't as good as everyone thinks. His dad was in the SAS and Connor can't stop measuring himself against him. If your reader has ever felt the pressure of living up to someone, they'll get it.

If your reader loves the nuts and bolts of how things are really done, there's plenty of real bodyguard know-how too (including how a wheelie bin can become a moving shield).

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The book opens with a kidnapped girl kneeling blindfolded with a gun to her head, sure she's about to be shot. She's rescued, and it all happens a year before the main story. There's also lots of talk of heavily armed pirates, and a politician washes his heart pills down with whisky.

For a child who's upset by guns or the idea of being kidnapped, that opening will be a lot. If your reader is already happy with stories where danger is part of the job, it's a gripping start.

This is the second Bodyguard book, and it gives away some of how the first one turns out. So if you can, start with Hostage.

What to read next

If they're after another fourteen-year-old pulled into grown-up secret work, try Anthony Horowitz's Stormbreaker. Alex Rider's uncle has just died in a car crash that doesn't add up, and the people from his uncle's bank don't seem much like bankers.