For all my friends readers teachers and librarians in the great state of Texas Roland For Roland Smith Thanks for letting me take the Ferrari for a drive Mike
Cast of Characters Quest Q Munoz Q is thirteen and wants to be a famous magician when he grows up His idol is the great magician Harry Houdini Q is ambivalent about school but gets As in math and writing He is seriously opposed to his new stepfather’s vegetarianism and sneaks junk food at any opportunity Tall with blond hair he dresses the same way almost every day usually in some variation of cargo pants or cargo shorts and a polo or T-shirt When Q is nervous he shuffles cards and practices card tricks It helps him relax and concentrate He has a complicated relationship with his biological father Speed Paulsen Q is prone to premonitions occasionally feeling that something bad is about to happen He calls these feelings the itch The itch proves useful to Q and Angela on more than one occasion Angela Tucker Angela fifteen has shoulder-length black hair with bangs and olive skin She has dark brown eyes and upon first meeting her Q thinks she is thin and a little frail-looking But Angela is anything but frail She wants to be a Secret Service agent like her mother Malak Tucker who died in the line of duty Angela is smart observant and highly organized Angela always carries a small tattered backpack in which she keeps extra hats sunglasses and other items that
help her disguise her appearance when she practices her countersurveillance techniques and tradecraft a term spies and agents use that refers to the techniques of trailing a suspect eluding a tail and other methods they use in performing their duties Angela keeps her desire to be an agent secret from her father Roger who would not approve Blaze Munoz and Roger Tucker Q’s mom and Angela’s dad have recently married They are musicians and perform together as the duet Match After marrying in a ceremony in San Francisco they take Q and Angela on tour with them across the country Tyrone Boone Boone is an old roadie someone who travels with musicians and musical acts performing all kinds of tasks on a tour Boone is in charge of tour security and keeps an eye on Q and Angela He travels with his very old nearly toothless and quite smelly dog Croc Boone is a former NOC No Official Cover agent for the CIA He now uses a network of former spies to run off-the-books or unofficial operations Malak Tucker Angela’s mother and a United States Secret Service agent Eben Lavi A rogue Mossad agent Mossad is roughly the Israeli equivalent of the CIA Eben is tracking a terrorist he believes is responsible for his brother’s death He believes the assassin known as the Leopard has a connection to Angela
Ziv The mysterious Ziv is a NOC agent for Mossad Buddy T Buddy T is Blaze and Roger’s manager Though he is obnoxious and offensive in practically every way he’s still one of the most successful managers in the music business Roger jokes that the T stands for To-Do because when Buddy talks he sounds like he’s giving everyone a to-do list Dirk Peski Dirk is nicknamed the Paparazzi Prince because he takes photos of the rich and famous and sells them to tabloid newspapers and gossip websites Dirk is one of Ziv’s operatives or agents J R Culpepper J R is the president of the United States or POTUS as he is referred to by the Secret Service Before being elected president he served in the U S Senate was vice president and was director of the CIA Marie and Art Marie and Art are Roger and Blaze’s personal assistants or PAs Buddy T thinks that he hired them but in fact they are highly trained agents and bodyguards working for Boone Heather Hughes Heather is the president of a record company and responsible in large part for putting Match back on the charts She knows Boone well from all her years in the music industry Mostly her job appears to be keeping Buddy T mollified and out of everyone’s way
