CHERRY TWIST..."Book 1... The Beginnings" A Cherry Twist Novel, by VIN SMITH Shy to a fault, but beautiful beyond description, Cherry Twist possessed a sense of justice seldom seen in the young. With her immigrant British parents, Lemuel and Sally Twist having been intimately involved in Britain's MI6 before retiring to West End Theatre in London, Cherry naturally gravitated to criminology. Her interest in justice and national security led her to graduate from college via a two-year immersion in distance learning two weeks after she received her regular high school diploma from the private Wright Independent High School in New York City. Her accomplishment had been unprecedented. Cherry didn't quite realize that Judd Morgan, a classmate, had actually fallen head-over-heals in love with her as far back as the eighth grade. When he confessed his love-lubricated with a kiss-Cherry realized that she, too, had always had feelings for Judd. The young man quickly brought out the confidence in Cherry Twist, and her shy, retiring nature was quickly replaced by self-assurance. Judd Morgan's relationship with his parents was strained, plus he had always hated his first name. With that in mind, the young man adopted Cherry's last name and used the name his friends had always called him-Morgan-as his first name. Cherry and Morgan Twist quickly founded their own investigation firm right out of high school. They hated the term detective agency. The two set out to outdo the storied Pinkerton's. The mob took exception to Cherry and Morgan's sense of justice. What followed was a bullet-riddled wedding, in which Cherry and Morgan had to shoot their way out of their own ceremony. On the heels of their wedding, Cherry and Morgan Twist quickly built an agency that became the talk of the industry, thanks to three of Cherry's mentors-NYPD police officer Bill Bonsa, storied investigator Melcher Feingold, whose prestige agency had been the talk of the Big Apple for years, and her own father, Lemuel. Morgan was enthusiastically adopted into the Twist family by Lemuel and Sally Twist, and became a close pal of Cherry's indomitable grandmother, Dame Judith Pickering, also a West End Theatre lifer. The bullets fly, the cadavers mount, and some criticized Cherry Twist, a world-class martial artist and weapons expert, for taking violence to the highest level. While her confidence level soared, so did a nagging feeling of spiritual emptiness. A drive to examine her life would not seem to melt away. Especially when she and Morgan encountered the case of an adorable four-year-old, the missing Wendy French, whose abduction led to her father's fatal heart attack.