The code-breaking adventures of a precocious crime-fighter

Book Ruby Redfort: Look Into My Eyes
By Lauren Child
Published by Harper Collins
ISBN 978 0 00 733406 3

Watch out! There's a new girl in town. Her name is Ruby Redfort, and she really is something special.

Ruby is an ace codebreaker, a no-holds-barred detective, and a secret special agent for an underground organisation that protects us all from danger. Ruby also happens to be a fairly normal 13-year-old. You could walk past her in the street and not give her a second glance. But that is all part of her dual identity. Ruby's job is to take on the most dastardly of villains.

Ruby Redfort: Look into my Eyes is the first novel in a proposed series of six featuring the extraordinary teenager. She is the latest great character created by Lauren Child, one of the most talented author/illustrators working in youth fiction today. Her Clarice Bean and Charlie and Lola books are big hits with a wide range of young readers.

Lauren's latest Clarice Bean book has sold more than half a million copies, and the Charlie and Lola TV series is shown on more than 30 TV channels all over the world.

Look into my Eyes is Child's first book not to feature illustrations - it's definitely for older readers. It is still an entertaining 390-page read that delights the reader at every turn.

The idea of a 13-year-old as a crack undercover agent might be a bit hard to swallow for some. Yet Child is such a clever, witty and persuasive writer that readers are hooked on her character in the space of a few chapters. You can't help warming to the precocious daughter of the Redfort family.