Gregory Mcdonald: Snatched (UK 1981)

From the Publisher:
WHO TOOK TOBY RINALDI?
Eight-year-old Toby is escorted to the airport for a flight to California -- but he never arrives.
He's been seized as a political hostage -- and there's a mysterious enemy determined that he won't survive.
But then the snatch goes wildly astray, when the victim totally vanishes...
From this point young Toby himself takes over -- and starts having the time of his life.
And the dazzling frenzy of a giant fun-fair becomes the scene of a terrifying climax.

"Twist-after-twist kidnap tale... GRIPPING AS SUPERGLUE" -- H.R.F. Keating, THE TIMES
"A racy, funny and tense story with an endearing hero" -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Mcdonald is so good a writer" -- NEW YORK TIMES

Gregory Mcdonald: Snatched. Feltham: Hamlyn Paperbacks, 1981, ISBN: 0600203905, 264 p., £1.50.

Gregory Mcdonald: Who Took Toby Rinaldi? (USA 1981)

From the Publisher:
"SCARY RIGHT UP TO THE SPLASHY CLIMAX." -- Cosmopolitan
THEY HAD JUST 48 HOURS TO FIND HIM... .
Then tanks would roll across the desert. The flow of oil from the Persian Gulf would stop. Around the globe, lights would dim and life would grind to a dead halt.

Everything hinged on Toby Rinaldi -- the boy whose father was the key to vital Mideast negotiations... the boy whose ransom the world could not afford to pay... the eight-year-old whiz-kid who had been put aboard a flight to San Francisco and mysteriously disappeared... .

WHO TOOK TOBY RINALDI?
They'll be sorry. They're in for a big surprise!

"CAPTIVATING... .COMBINES WIT AND INTRIGUE WITH A NIGHTMARE AMUSEMENT PARK, INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT, AN ANGRY EX-CON, AND A KIDNAPPING." -- Chicago Tribune

"THE STORY'S THRILLS RIVAL (A) PLUNGING ROLLER COASTER RIDE." -- Publishers Weekly

Gregory Mcdonald: Who Took Toby Rinaldi? Dell Books, ISBN: 044019542X (October, 1981), 267 p., $2.95.

Gregory Mcdonald: Snatched (UK 1980)

From the Publisher:
Toby Rinaldi is eight years old, the son of the ambassador to the United Nations of a Middle Eastern oil state. Mrs Brown, the estimable Rinaldi housekeeper, delivers him to an airline steward at Kennedy Airport, and his mother, Christina, is awaiting him at Los Angeles. But he doesn't arrive. He has been kidnapped, a political hostage.

The ambassador telephones his country's ruler, who puts his Intelligence chief, Colonel Turnbull, in charge of the case. Turnbull, as it happens, rabidly hates the Rinaldis, and now sees his great chance to make them suffer: he intends to ensure that the boy doesn't survive. But what no one knows -- not even, as yet, the people master-minding the kidnapping -- is that the affair has gone wildly astray, and that the boy has totally vanished.

From this point, young Toby takes over. A very engaging and resourceful lad, he knows just what he wants, which is a visit to Fantazyland (a kind of Disneyland). Spike, the confused and unhappy thug who is nominally his guard, has no effective control over him. So, while the rival factions gradually close in on him, he's having the time of his life up and down and round and under (especially under) Fantazyland's complex of fun structures. And when the climax arrives, Toby triumphs splendidly.

This is Gregory Mcdonald at his most mischievous in a tale that's tensely exciting and riotously funny: a grand entertainment.

Gregory Mcdonald: Snatched. Kidnapping - with a difference. London: Gollancz, 1980, ISBN: 0575028734, 264 p., £5.50.