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Escape from Shadow Island - Max Cassidy 1
 
 

Escape from Shadow Island - Max Cassidy 1 [Kindle Edition]

Paul Adam
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Digital List Price: £5.37 What's this?
Print List Price: £5.99
Kindle Price: £3.59 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Product Description

Book Description

Think Alex Rider meets Houdini and you've got Escape from Shadow Island. The first book in a fantastic, fast and furious new action-adventure series.

Product Description

Max is an ordinary north London schoolboy by day, but at night he performs sell-out public shows as an escapologist – nicknamed The Half-Pint Houdini by the tabloid press. His father, Alexander, was also a world-renowned escapologist, who disappeared two years earlier in the Central American state of Santo Domingo. His body was never found, but Max’s mother, Helen, was convicted of murdering her husband by a Santo Domingan court. One evening, after his show, Max receives a visit from a mysterious man from Santo Domingo. Lopez-Vega tells Max that his mother’s trial was rigged and, if Max comes to his hotel room the following night, he has something to give him. When Max goes to the hotel, he finds Lopez-Vega dead, shot through the head. The room has clearly been searched by the killer, but what was he looking for? By chance, Max finds a piece of paper hidden under Lopez-Vega’s wig. Written on the paper is a sequence of eight numbers - 83521113.What do the numbers mean? Are they a code, or maybe the combination for a lock or a safe? Could they be the key to unlocking the mystery of his father’s disappearance and getting his mother out of prison?

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 305 KB
  • Print Length: 290 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 055256303X
  • Publisher: RHCB Digital (15 Sep 2009)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B0031RDVZK
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #52,364 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A flying start. 21 July 2009
By Z. Herbert TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
This well-paced, all-action adventure story is all go from page one. The characters are solidly drawn, believable and interesting.

The hero (Max) is smart without being a clever-clogs and inventive in finding solutions to the various sticky fixes in which he finds himself. I did not like the casual theft of a large sum of money at one point; it might be argued he steals from an unprincipled person so that's OK. But...

The supporting cast perform well, neither too many nor too few, and each serves a purpose. The dialogue is well-written and moves along without superfluous exchange. The plot twists and turns mercilessly, never flagging for a moment and I enjoyed the (slight) improbabilities.

As I neared the final pages, I wondered how the story was to conclude itself in so small a time. And therein lies my only gripe with this book. There is not a conclusion. The book is a complete episode but not a complete story. We'll have to wait for the next thrilling instalment, I suppose. But it is fun to read, although some of the stereotypes ought not to be taken too seriously.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Book Addict TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
Max Cassidy is only fourteen, yet he uses the skills his dad taught him to become an escapologist; the money he earns from his escape acts used to support himself and pay the legal fees for his mother who has been found guilty of the murder of his father in Santo Domingo; a small south American country. With no body ever found, Max initially believed his father had disappeared, but after two years he is finding it difficult to remain optimistic as he watches the slow decline in his mother's health following her transfer to a prison in the UK where she will complete her eighteen year sentence.

Max's hopes are renewed when a mysterious man Luis Lopez-Vega claims his father is still alive, a man who is later found dead with a bullet wound in his head. Max is determined to find his father and prove the innocence of his mother, and to do so he travels to the corrupted Santo Domingo in the hopes he can uncover further clues and identify the relevance of a number sequence he found hidden on Lopez-Vega's body.

The setting of Santo Domingo, a country in which the rich get richer whilst the poor become even more impoverished, where corruption is rife and bribery more effective than justice, is no place for the faint hearted or for those who battle the corrupt regime. Any threats to the status quo (including Max and his various companions on his quest) are quickly shipped off to the mysterious and sinister Shadow Island, some never to be seen alive again.

"Escape from Shadow Island" is a clever, exciting start to an excellent new thriller series, to be followed by book 2 "The Cedar Alliance" and yet to be titled book 3 (scheduled for publication Jan 2010). Although only fourteen, Max reveals some enviable skills and a stalwart determination to uncover the supposed murder of his father, yet he remains a believable character and his actions certainly never become ridiculously farfetched. The villains are somewhat stereotypical, but as the action centres mostly on Max , and his companions during his adventure are certainly more fleshed out than the bad guys, this never becomes a big issue. As to be expected in the first book of a series, there are several major issues which remain inconclusive, leaving it essential to read the sequels to discover the final outcome in Max's quest to find his father and free his mother.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Surprising 19 Nov 2009
By A. Wright VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I have read numerous entries into the "young boy goes on an adventure" novel genre. A lot of them feature the main protagonist as some form of spy or secret agent, and it's a nice change of pace for the character to be in a very different position. Max Cassidy is a 14 year old boy who works as an escapologist under the stage name 'The Half-Pint Houdini'. Max uses the money he earns to supports himself, and to pay his mothers legal bills. His mother is in prison, accused of murdering Max's father, but Max does not believe this to be true. Upon meeting a mysterious man who tells Max that his mother is innocent, Max decides to travel to Santo Domingo, the location of the supposed murder of his father. Upon arrival there, he soon finds out about the titular Shadow Island, a mysterious place where anyone who stirs up the corrupt regime in Santo Domingo is sent, and often is not seen again.

The book is a fairly exciting entry into the genre, and it's nice to see one of these books where the main character still has a parent that's alive. The story moves along at a quick pace, never taking too long to get to the point, and all of the dialogue is simple and not too wordy. The action is well paced, and there are some truly tense scenes where the drama doesn't flag. If there is one problem with the story though, it is the fact that at times it can require a little too much suspension of disbelief, not to mention the end of the book makes no bones about the fact that there will be a sequel.
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