Summary
When seven members of their family were kidnapped by a sinister organization known as the Vespers, thirteen-year-old Dan Cahill and his older sister, Amy, vowed they'd stop at nothing to bring the hostages home. But then the ransom comes in and the Vespers demand the impossible. Amy and Dan have just days to track down and steal an ancient map. The only catch? No one has seen the map for half a century.
Now Amy and Dan are on a desperate search that will lead them to the Nazis, spies, a mad king and some of history's dirtiest secrets. It's the race of their lives . . . and one misstep will mean certain death for the hostages.
Judy Blundell, pseudonym Jude Watson, is an American author of books for middle grade, young adult, and adult readers. Jude Watson is primarily known as the author of Star Wars books. Writing for the Star Wars franchise she works with editors from LucasBooks as well as Scholastic. Her debut came when LucasBooks recruited her to write the Star Wars Journal Captive to Evil by Princess Leia Organa, published by Scholastic in 1998. Beside the journals of Princess Leia, Queen Amidala (1999), and Darth Maul (1999), Watson is the author of three series that comprise about forty books: Jedi Apprentice (except for the first book), Jedi Quest, and The Last of the Jedi. She is also a co-author with K. D. Burkett in the Star Wars: Science Adventures series. Her other books include the romance series Brides of Wildcat County, the parapsychic science fictions Premonitions and Disappearance, and three books in the 39 Clues mystery adventure series.
She won the annual National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2008 for the young-adult novel What I Saw and How I Lied, published under her real name by Scholastic Books. In 2013 she made The New York Times Best Seller List for her title Nowhere to Run.
(Bowker Author Biography)
