Joshua Mowll

Joshua Mowll is a British writer of children’s fiction. His award-winning The Guild of Specialists trilogy has been published in 20 countries worldwide.

Operation Typhoon Shore was listed one of the UK Government's 160 recommended reads for teenage boys in 2007. The Times, London 16.05.07

The second book is separated from the first by only a few days. Becca and Doug's journey continues, but now the stakes are even higher than before. Their uncle's ship Expedient, partially wrecked during the battle with the pirate Sheng-Fat in Operation Red Jericho, battles through a typhoon to pursue the evil Julius Pembleton-Crozier who has taken over an archipelago of islands in the Celebes Sea. He and his confederates have and built an extremely dangerous machine there powered by the strange substance zoridium, and they must be stopped. A new array of deadly enemies and challenges face Becca and Doug. Vital clues to past and present must be found which will lead them to their ultimate goal – to discover the whereabouts of their parents.

Operation Storm City is the final installment of the trilogy. From India to the desert wastes of China, Becca and Doug must follow every clue and scrap of information discovered so far in their adventures to guide them to the truth about their missing parents. Old friends join them in new alliances, for Becca and Doug know now that they must find Ur-Can, the fabled machine at the very heart of the story, which is hidden deep in the Taklamakan Desert – the so-called 'Desert of Death'. They now know Ur-Can holds the answers they seek, as it was the destination of their parents' lost expedition. But Ur-Can has fallen into the hands of a mad Russian general intent on using the machine's colossal power for his own evil ends. Becca and Doug are tested beyond anything they've so far endured in the trilogy as they try to conclude their grueling quest.

“...beware of the cheap imitations it will undoubtedly spawn." The Guardian, London 12.11.05

Mowll's book The Great Space Race was published in the UK on 2 August 2010

Mowll's first book following his Guild of Specialists trilogy, called The Great Space Race, was published in the UK on 2 August 2010. It is unrelated to The Guild of Specialists trilogy, and follows a family trying to regain their fortune by landing a rocket on the moon. In 2014, Mowll's fifth book, Beautiful Titan was made available through Amazon Kindle.

“...hypnotically packed with detail... " Daily Telegraph, London 09.12.06

Awards On publication Operation Red Jericho won the prestigious Poppy Red Award for Innovation in Children's Books at the British Book Trade Awards, (2006).

Walker Books won the auction and Operation Red Jericho was published in 2005, followed by Operation Typhoon Shore in 2006, and Operation Storm City in 2008 (May 2009 in the USA).

The books were well received, with Operation Red Jericho being the Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week during September 2005.

The trilogy was the subject of an international bidding war in 2004. Publishers were sent boxes of artefacts and documents taken from an archive apparently bequeathed to Mowll by his recently deceased great aunt; the archive is said to have provided the material for the three books in The Guild of Specialists trilogy.

In June 2004 it was reported in Publishing News that Walker Books had notched up its highest-ever rights sale in a fiercely contested auction for Japanese rights to Operation Red Jericho. The book was sold to Sony Magazines Inc for an undisclosed six-figure sum.

“Mowll's genius, though, is in his clever mixing of old and new storytelling devices, and a clear and intelligent voice that should appeal to both girls and boys..." South China Morning Post, Hong Kong 28/08/05

“This is not just an adventure story; it is a designer object..." Sunday Times, London 25.09.05

The Guild of Specialists trilogy is set in Asia in 1920 and follows the adventures of Becca and Doug MacKenzie hunting for clues to the mystery of why their parents went missing on a secret expedition to Sinkiang (Xinjiang) in the remote desert wastes of western China. It is very much Indiana Jones meets Dan Brown in genre, with secret societies, amazing weaponry and ripping-yarn villains.

In 1920, the heroes of the story Rebecca and Doug MacKenzie, leave Shanghai aboard their uncle's ship Expedient, intent on discovering the whereabouts of their missing parents who have disappeared while on a secret mission to the deserts of Western China. Faced with terrifying bloodthirsty pirates, submarines and deadly torpedoes, their task quickly becomes a dangerous struggle to survive. Rebecca and Doug discover the answers they seek lie in a tangle of mysterious age-old societies guarding ancient secrets, and particularly a strange substance which lies at the heart of the mystery called Zoridium. Imprisoned on a pirate island off the China coast and facing certain death, they must find a way to escape if they are to continue their desperate quest.