Max Cassidy: Escape from Shadow Island - Hardcover

Adam, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061863238 ISBN 13: 9780061863233

Publisher: Walden Pond Press, 2010

Synopsis

Max Cassidy can escape from anything

Only fourteen years old, Max is the world's foremost escape artist. Chained, handcuffed, locked in an airtight water tank, there's nothing he can't get himself out of. He learned the art from his father—a man who just two years ago was murdered, and Max's mother went to jail for the crime.

Now a mysterious man has shown up backstage after one of Max's shows, telling Max that not only is his mother innocent, but his father is still alive. He can provide only one clue: a slip of paper with eight digits written on it. It is this clue that will lead Max from his home in London to the exotic and deadly Central American country of Santo Domingo and the impenetrable fortress on the sinister Isla de Sombra.

Max Cassidy can escape from anything—but given the chance to finally know the truth about what has torn his family apart, escape from Shadow Island is the last thing on his mind.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Adam is a writer of adult thrillers. This is his first book for children. He lives in Sheffield, England, with his wife and two sons.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–9—Onstage, Max, a 14-year-old London-based escape artist, is an up-and-coming wunderkind pushing the envelope of his inherited art form. Offstage, he is barely holding on. His father, the legendary escapologist Alexander Cassidy, has been missing and presumed dead since mysteriously disappearing in Santo Domingo two years earlier. Max's mother was hastily convicted of murdering her husband by a corrupt court and is now imprisoned, her health quickly deteriorating. Max has always believed in his mother's innocence, but it's not until he is visited by a mysterious stranger that he finally believes he has a chance of unraveling the truth. Lopez-Vega tells him that his father is still alive and that his mother was framed, and he invites Max to meet him the next day because he has something for him. Unfortunately, when Max arrives for the appointment, he finds Lopez-Vega slain in his room. Convinced that the cryptic message on the underside of the man's toupee is somehow key to discovering his father's whereabouts and clearing his mother's name, Max convinces Consuela, his guardian, to accompany him back to the scene of his father's disappearance. Readers who enjoy this solid mystery/adventure—one made more interesting by its insider insights into escapology—will have to wait to have this mystery fully uncovered, but Adam does a good job of whetting appetites for a sequel.—Jeffrey Hastings, Highlander Way Middle School, Howell, MI
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Edition details

• Publisher: Walden Pond Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061863238
• ISBN 13: 9780061863233
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304