Outback Attack

Ninja Meerkats #8

by Gareth P. Jones, Luke Finlayson (Illustrations)

Armed to the teeth with ninja know-how, this ultimate fighting force has one goal—to thwart the evil ringmaster’s plans for world domination. Ninja-Boom!

In Book 8, the Ninja Meerkats receive strange reports from the Australian outback. They fly down under to investigate and discover strange goings-on in the desert. Who else could be behind it but that top-hatted menace, the Ringmaster? He is building missiles to take control of the world. With boxing kangaroos and killer koalas—not to mention the Ringmaster’s crew of deadly circus goons—the Ninja Meerkats are on deadly desert mission.

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

Gareth first started writing when he was very young but it wasn’t until he was in his early twenties that he completed his first novel. Having had it universally rejected he wrote a novel for children called Who Killed Charlie Twig, which received an equally unimpressed reception and remains rightly unpublished to this day.

Some years passed during which Gareth met his future wife, Lisa and began a career in TV, working on shows such as The Big Breakfast and Richard & Judy. Then one day he found himself having lunch at the offices of Bloomsbury. He mentioned the unpublished book to a nice lady called Sarah, who politely suggested that he should send in the first three chapters for her to look at (and most likely dismiss, she thought to herself). Gareth returned home and excitedly told his wife this news, who gently explained that the book he had written actually wasn’t very good, but reminded him that he had recently begun work on a much better idea. This turned out to be good advice. In 2007 Bloomsbury published the first of four books in the series The Dragon Detective Agency and have since published The Thornthwaite Inheritance, Space Crime Conspiracy and The Considine Curse. He has also written a shorter story, Perry’s 5, published by Barrington Stoke and a series of books called Ninja Meerkats, published by Stripes.

Gareth now divides his time between writing books, producing TV programmes, spending time with his wife and son, Herbie and playing the slightly ludicrous number of stringed instruments in his front room.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS

The Dragon Detective Agency: The Case of the Missing Cats was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Book Prize.
The Thornthwaite Inheritance was shortlisted for eleven local book awards and won seven of them.
The Considine Curse was voted Blue Peter Book of the Year 2012.