Ruby Redfort Take Your Last Breath (Ruby Redfort Series #2)

by Lauren Child, Lauren Child (Illustrator)

Overview

Crack open Ruby Redfort’s second adventure — and you will literally be on the edge of your wits.

Everyone’s favorite girl detective is back for a second mind-blowing installment, packed with all the off-the-wall humor, action, and friendship of the first book. This time, though, it’s an adventure on the wide-open ocean, and Ruby is all at sea. . . . Can she crack the case of the Twinford pirates while evading the clutches of a vile sea monster as well as the evil Count von Viscount? Well, you wouldn’t want to bet against her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763654689
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	05/14/2013
Series:	Ruby Redfort Series , #2
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.40(d)
Lexile:	840L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

About the Author

Lauren Child has published many best-selling and award-winning books, including the hugely popular Charlie and Lola and Clarice Bean series. She has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal. Lauren Child lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

It’s as if James Bond met Nancy Drew met Harriet the Spy, and it works most effectively, complete with appendixes that discuss code breaking in music, text, and graphics. Three cheers for a determinedly wholesome mystery series that doesn’t talk down to its tween audience.
—Booklist Online

Ruby is a smart, feisty, and definitely fun character who easily pulls readers into this fast-paced mystery. There are a variety of secret codes throughout the book that readers can have a go at in the concluding section. While this is the second title in the series, it can definitely stand alone, although readers will surely want to read more about this spunky character’s adventures.
—School Library Journal

The codes (musical and binary) that Ruby deciphers are great fun... [A] middle-grade mystery for budding sleuths.
—Kirkus Reviews

Ruby will appeal to young readers who like their action with a dash of danger, and their heroines witty and independent.
—VOYA

From the Publisher

Thirteen-year-old secret agent Ruby Redfort (Look Into My Eyes, 2012) barely has a week to breathe before finding herself in the middle of another dastardly evil plan--oh, there are also pirates, a sea monster, a mysterious stranger and a lost treasure, too. This retro spy adventure opens with a series of strange marine disturbances. Coast Guard signals are scrambled, all the fish are gone, and there is a whispering sound coming from the ocean. Plus, one of the divers from Spectrum, the supersecret spy agency where Ruby trains, has washed ashore, dead. To add to the ever-evolving, sometimes belabored plot, the boat that Ruby's parents are on is attacked by pirates, leaving both Sabina and Brant Redfort missing at sea. All of the subplots are ocean-related, but readers (and Ruby) don't know how they are connected until Count von Viscount, the villain from the first volume, shows up briefly--his manifest evil nature enough to tie everything together. Child's cliffhanger chapter endings help the pace tremendously, and the codes (musical and binary) that Ruby deciphers are great fun. But thrilling and edge-of-your-seat adventure? That seems to be the territory of other literary spies, despite a cover that oozes intrigue. A harmless, middle-grade mystery for budding sleuths. (Mystery. 9-14)

Kirkus Reviews