J. Ryan – författare

Joe St Aubin and girlfriend Becks Bowman have the awful suspicion that his secret agent father could be working for the wrong side – a drugs gang leader and poisoner, the Contessa Palestrina. Worse still, they have discovered that this lethal woman hates Monsieur le Comte de la Rochelle, who has become a father figure to Joe during his quest to find his dad.

When new girl, Talia, arrives at Joe and Becks’ school, they suspect that she is the Contessa’s daughter. Their worst fears are confirmed when Talia invites them to her birthday party in Paris, saying that Monsieur’s son Arnaud will be there. In Paris, they tail the Contessa into her poison laboratory in the Catacombs, but she locks them in there. They blast their way out, but Joe has picked up a mobile phone smeared with a contact poison. He is close to death when Monsieur saves him with an injection.

At the party, Talia collapses. With Monsieur, the teenagers pursue the Contessa to his yacht in Marseille. She has taken Arnaud hostage with a deadly remote control poison bracelet, and demands that Monsieur sails to England. During the violent storm that follows, tragic revelations emerge about Monsieur’s past, and Joe’s life is about to change forever...

In Missing Dad 2: Twisted, Joe and girlfriend Becks are precipitated back into the criminal underworld where his secret agent father disappeared. And where Monsieur, the one man who could lead Joe to his father, has vanished.

On a half term trip to the South of France, Joe and Becks have a terrifying encounter with their old enemy, drugs baron Bertolini – and with a teenager who looks startlingly familiar. They learn from Monsieur that this is his son, Arnaud, lost to him and in the clutches of Bertolini and a deadly cocaine habit. Determined to try and get Monsieur’s son back to him, Joe and Becks have to go into hiding in a safe house in Bristol provided by Monsieur. But the dark tentacles of Bertolini’s empire reach out to Joe again when he receives an offer: Monsieur’s son will be sent back to him if Joe returns to his old job as the drug gang’s driver.

Joe has made his decision when suddenly Arnaud bursts back into their lives – desperately ill as he weans himself off the cocaine, and on the run from Bertolini. They put Arnaud on a plane for the South of France but are seen by Bertolini’s mob, kidnapped and taken to the drug baron’s mountain hideaway in Corsica. As Joe and Becks call on all their wits and courage to deal with the gun-toting Bertolini and his crew, the action ramps up from a moonlit battle on horseback on the French Camargue, to a breathtaking fight to the finish in the Corsican mountains – and confirmation that Joe’s father is still alive...

Missing Dad 2: Twisted is a heart-stopping thriller that will appeal to new and old fans of the Missing Dad series alike. It is suitable for young adults aged 12+.