Meet Ruby Redfort: Genius code-cracker. Undercover agent. Schoolgirl.

Ruby peered down into utter blackness. Small dark spaces were her biggest terror. Very slowly she eased herself into the drain, merging with the dark. The panic rose up through her body and started to play its usual tricks on her mind.

She thought of Mrs Digby – all Ruby’s life, her housekeeper had been there to squash her fears and prop up her spirits. If Mrs Digby were here now she would say, “Good gracious! You don’t want to be bothered being scared of the dark when there are so many other bigger things to be frightened of – like for example getting to my age and losing your marbles, or being run down by one of those city buses with their maniac drivers…”

Want to know more? Of course you do, buster.

Here’s the lowdown: Ruby Redfort is the coolest, smartest heroine you could ever wish to meet. She’s a gadget-laden secret agent with a talent for breaking codes, and she’s always ice-cool in a crisis. Ruby and her slick side-kick butler, Hitch, work for secret crime-busting organisation SPECTRUM. Break-ins, daring rescues, life-and-death situations: they’re all in a day’s work for this dynamic duo.

But when this book begins, Ruby Redfort is just an ordinary schoolgirl in California, though admittedly with pretty great taste in clothes. So how did this super-cute, super-sassy girl end up doing such a dangerous job?

There’s only one way to find out.