In a dangerous world, everyone needs protection. Hostage is the first installment from the Bodyguard series by Chris Bradford, best-selling author of Young Samurai. Bodyguard is a bulletproof action-adventure series that fans of Cherub and Alex Rider will love. This is Lee Child for younger readers--Jason Bourne for the next generation.

August 1611. Jack Fletcher is shipwrecked off the coast of Japan - his beloved father and the crew lie slaughtered by ninja pirates. Rescued by the legendary sword master Masamoto Takeshi, Jack's only hope is to become a samurai warrior. And so his training begins. But life at the samurai school is a constant fight for survival. With courage in his heart and his sword held high, can Jack prove himself and face his deadliest rival yet?

H.I.V.E. is a top-secret school of villainy, where children with a precocious talent for wrongdoing are sent to develop their talents and become criminal masterminds. After all, "Villains have the best lines and wear the best costumes."

Otto and Wing have permission to leave H.I.V.E.'s secret island location to attend a funeral. But before they can reach their destination, the duo is ambushed. Who would risk assassinating the star pupil of the Higher Institute of Villainous Education?

A top-secret government programme needs a crack team of undercover military operators. They must have awesome levels of determination, endurance and fitness. They must be able to think on their feet. The recruits undergo the most rigorous and testing selection process the modern military can devise. And in order to operate in circumstances where adult forces would be compromised, the recruits must be under 16. Only a few are tough enough and smart enough to make it. 

A terrorist doesn't let strangers in her flat because they might be undercover police or intelligence agents, but her children bring their mates home and they run all over the place. The terrorist doesn't know that a kid has bugged every room in her house, cloned the hard drive on her PC, and copied all the numbers in her phone book. The kid works for Cherub. Cherub agents are aged between 10 and 17. They live in the real world, slipping under adult radar and getting information that sends criminals and terrorists to jail.

The world’s most powerful villains have a problem. One of their own is threatening global Armageddon, with himself at the head of a sinister new world order. Meanwhile, Otto, Wing and other students from H.I.V.E. are en route to a training exercise in the Arctic known as the ninety-three-percenter, owing to the proportion of students who make it back alive. But before they arrive, events take over, and Otto and his most trusted villain-friends find themselves in the sights of the most dangerous man alive, with nowhere to run to....

Otto and Raven are desperate to rescue their friends from the clutches of Anastasia Furan, head of the evil Disciples organisation. First they must track down the location of the Glasshouse, the prison where Furan trains children to become ruthless assassins. But Otto is also being hunted. The three months that Otto has spent following his expulsion from H.I.V.E. have given the Artemis Section - an elite division of the American intelligence services that specialises in capturing the toughest targets and reports only to the president - an opportunity to locate him.

The leaders of the world’s villainous forces are being picked off one by one, and Dr Nero is forced to take temporary control of G.L.O.V.E. after Diabolus Darkdoom is seriously injured. Nero discovers that Otto, who has been missing for several months, is leading the attacks, and he is forced to issue a capture or kill order.When Wing learns of the order, she persuades Raven to join her on a mission to retrieve Otto.

Overlord is reborn, and has developed the chilling ability to move from body to body, erasing the host’s personality and ultimately killing them. He must find Otto, the only host designed to contain him, and for that he needs the location of H.I.V.E. He also plans to take control of a secret US Army facility that is home to the Autonomous Weapon Programme, a computer-controlled system uniquely vulnerable to his control.

Otto and the rest of the elite Alpha stream at H.I.V.E. have been sent on their most dangerous exercise yet: The Hunt. But when Otto and the rest of the Alphas arrive in the icy wastes of Siberia, it becomes clear that something is wrong. Dr Nero, the head of the school, has made some powerful enemies at the Global League of Villainous Enterprises - and the first strike against Nero will be a strike against the Alpha stream.

Summer, 1944. As Allied soldiers prepare to land in France, Marc and his friends must destroy a battalion of German tanks that could halt the invasion in its tracks. The tide of war has turned against the Nazis, but desperation has made them more brutal than ever. Henderson's Boys' final mission will be their most dangerous. With food and weapons in short supply, survival is the biggest challenge of all.

A terrorist doesn't let strangers in her flat because they might be undercover police or intelligence agents, but her children bring their mates home, and they run all over the place. The terrorist doesn't know that one of these kids has bugged every room in her house, made copies of all her computer files and stolen her address book. The kid works for Cherub. Cherub agents are aged between 10 and 17. They live in the real world, slipping under adult radar and getting information that sends criminals and terrorists to jail.

Alex is trying to get his life back on track. But Scorpia has returned, and when you’re the world’s most successful spy, the only way out is to face your enemies. Alex’s final mission will be the deadliest of all.

Spring, 1943. The war is turning against Germany, but Hitler isn't giving up. In a secret bunker deep in occupied France, scientists are hard at work on Hitler's latest deadly weapon: code name FZG-76. Back in England Henderson's boys will need to undergo advanced sniper training if they've any chance of infiltrating the bunker. Parachuting into occupied France, they track down a secret dossier filled with invaluable material - and uncover the meaning of the enigmatic code.