Framed is about Dylan, a nine year old boy, who is a football and ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ fanatic. He lives with his parents and three siblings – Marie, Minnie and Max – and they run their own business. Dylan lives in Manod – a grey, boring town in Wales where nothing ever happens.

One morning (it was raining as usual) two cars and two vans go up the road leading to Manod Mountain (which leads to the mountain only and doesn’t go anywhere else) but they don’t come back down. What are they doing? After that, everything changes. Dylan and his younger sister Minnie, with the help of an employee at the family business, Tom, experience the insanity of missing paintings, stolen minis, huge debts and, at the same time, trying to keep the business from closing down.

Throughout Framed, Frank Cottrell Boyce links descriptions and comparisons to main subjects in the book. For example:

‘If the Turtles can cope with a completely wrecked home and kidnapped master then Team Hughes can raise the money for a tank of petrol’

Framed is easily read and there isn’t much adventurous vocabulary (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but older readers might find it a bit dull to read):

 ‘I grabbed the tissues and ran after him. He was just opening the driver’s-side door when I shouted at him to wait.’

The cover looked eye-catching – it was shiny and had a lot of intense red – and the book was in hard-back. On the whole it was well presented. A bit more than 300 pages and less than thirty lines per page, this book can be read quite quickly. 

Overall, Framed is an easy-read, written for younger readers (9+). The plot was very slow and I kept reading, waiting for something to happen. The last sixth of the book is where things get going and a real story forms. I liked the style of writing and found it easy to understand what was going on. However, I thought the ending was a bit spoilt and something more interesting could have happened to the characters. I would give this book 6/10.