Author(s): Paul Adam

Fiction - senior

"Max is an ordinary north London schoolboy by day, but at night he performs sell-out public shows as an escapologist nicknamed The Half-Pint Houdini by the tabloid press. His father, Alexander, was also a world-renowned escapologist, who disappeared two years earlier in the Central American state of Santo Domingo. His body was never found, but Max s mother, Helen, was convicted of murdering her husband by a Santo Domingan court. One evening, after his show, Max receives a visit from a mysterious man from Santo Domingo. Lopez-Vega tells Max that his mother s trial was rigged and, if Max comes to his hotel room the following night, he has something to give him. When Max goes to the hotel, he finds Lopez-Vega dead, shot through the head. The room has clearly been searched by the killer, but what was he looking for? By chance, Max finds a piece of paper hidden under Lopez-Vega s wig. Written on the paper is a sequence of eight numbers 83521113. What do the numbers mean? Are they a code, or maybe the combination for a lock or a safe? Could they be the key to unlocking the mystery of his father s disappearance and getting his mother out of prison?"