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Chris Bradford's Bodyguard: Ambush is a fast action thriller for 11 year olds that starts with Connor Reeves being grabbed in his sleep with a bag over his head.
It's the third book in the Bodyguard series. Connor works for Buddyguard, a secret organisation that trains teenagers to protect young people who might be kidnapped or worse.
So who's grabbed him? Connor keeps his head. He counts the seconds between turns and picks up a whiff of perfume through the bag. Then the bag comes off in a restaurant and his whole team shouts happy birthday! (It was Jason's idea, of course.)
That's the feel of the early chapters. The team tease each other non-stop. Amir trying and failing to snap a zip-tie behind his back, while everyone cries with laughter, is very funny.
Connor's big present is a set of car keys. In this job nobody's too young to drive, apparently. His anti-ambush driving test has a handbrake J-turn, a roadblock to ram straight through and a paintball gunman leaping out in front of the car.
It's not all action though. Connor goes home to East London with Charley and finds his mum's multiple sclerosis has got worse. There's a new ramp at the door and a folded wheelchair in the hall.
His gran knows what Buddyguard really is. She's frightened for him and wants him to quit. Then his mum hands him his late dad's survival knife and medal, and Connor finally lets himself cry. Those home scenes are really touching.
Meanwhile, deep in the jungle in Burundi, a rebel general is swapping a pink diamond for two trucks full of brand-new guns. Connor has promised his gran he isn't on the next mission and will be safe back at HQ. Will it stay that way?
The prologue follows a fifteen-year-old boy soldier called No Mercy, who got his name for killing without pity. His general is known for chopping off villagers' hands, and the ministers talk about real wars fought over diamonds. Even the birthday prank starts out exactly like a real kidnapping.
A child who finds talk of war or boy soldiers upsetting might want to know that going in. If your reader loves knowing exactly how bodyguards train, from breaking zip-ties to escaping a roadblock, they'll probably fly through it.
If your reader hasn't met Connor yet, the place to start is Bodyguard: Hostage. That's where a kickboxing champion steps in to stop a mugging in an alley and finds out the whole thing was a test.
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