Conville & Walsh

When Joshua Mowll inherited the estate of his great-aunt, Rebecca MacKenzie, it set in motion a chain of events that would have far-reaching consequences. After her death, Joshua visited his aunt’s cottage and opened a sealed vault, uncovering the history of a mysterious secret society whose existence and purpose had remained hidden from the world for centuries. As a result, OPERATION RED JERICHO, the first book of a trilogy which tells the tale of the Honourable Guild of Specialists, is loaded with exciting confidential material from this archive: letters, maps, sketches, photographs and a diary.

The story begins in Shanghai in 1920, nearly 12 months after the cartographer Hamish MacKenzie and his wife Elena disappeared while leading an expedition through the Sin Kiang desert region of western China. Doug, 13, and Rebecca, 15, have been forced to leave the family home in Lucknow, India. They end up in care of their uncle, Captain Fitzroy MacKenzie, on board his oceanographic research ship, the Expedient. In Shanghai, Doug and Rebecca spy on the captain as he plots a clandestine mission with the mysterious Order of the Sujing Quantou, China’s most ancient mercenaries. He plans, with their help, to recover a highly volatile explosive known as zoridium from the brutal pirate warlord Sheng-Fat – but can it be a coincidence that the only known source of zoridium is located in the desert wastes of Sin Kiang? This discovery means that Doug and Rebecca no longer know whom to trust or where to turn, taking the search for their parents into their own hands, with extraordinary results.

The series will be published in hardback notebook binding with elasticated fastening and full-colour facsimile archive material at a price of £10.99. The sequels to OPERATION RED JERICHO are TYPHOON SHORE (published summer 2006) and STORM CITY (published summer 2007).