Agent Z Goes Wild

Description

A wildly witty adventure from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Ben's in danger of spending his holidays cooped up in a caravan with his mad Aunt Gwen. But by luck (and bribery), he gets a place on the school trip to an outward-bound centre in Wales, along with Barney, Jenks and of course, Agent Z. Abseiling, orienteering, sinking enemy canoes and sabotaging toothpaste are all in a day's work for the Crane Grove Crew. But then they uncover a news clipping which reveals that their centre manager, the affectionately nicknamed 'Grenade-head', is in fact an escaped bank robber. He's planning to recover the buried loot any night now and Agent Z and the crew intend to be there when he does. If you think that sounds like a downright ridiculous plan, you'd be right. Especially as the escaped criminal story turns out to be the invention of the crew's new pal, Roz and for once, the joke's on them! Mark Haddon has a sharp understanding of what makes children tick, and they will delight in the ever more daring, ever more hilarious missions of Agent Z and his three creators.

Mark Haddon is a writer and artist. His bestselling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, was published simultaneously by Jonathan Cape and David Fickling in 2003. It won seventeen literary prizes, including the Whitbread Award. In 2012, a stage adaptation by Simon Stephens was produced by the National Theatre and went on to win 7 Olivier Awards in 2013 and the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play. In 2005 his poetry collection, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea, was published by Picador, and his play, Polar Bears, was produced by the Donmar Warehouse in 2010. His most recent novel, The Red House, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2012. The Pier Falls, a collection of short stories, was also published by Cape in 2016. To commemorate the centenary of the Hogarth Press he wrote and illustrated a short story that appeared alongside Virginia Woolf's first story for the press in Two Stories (Hogarth, 2017).

Slipping effortlessly between reality and a rich fantasy world, this is breathless action from start to finish * Guardian *