ANNA SMUDGE

With blithe disregard for educational or legal prerequisites, not to mention internal logic, an 11-year-old sets up as a practicing therapist and finds herself on the trail of a mysterious crime kingpin. Along with standard problems with a bully and working absentee parents, Anna lags a few steps behind in her high-energy, New York City private-school world. Then overnight she parlays a talent for listening to others into a thriving business, and one of her patients admits to being a hit man hired by “Mr. Who”—to do in her tycoon father. After a brief tussle with her conscience over therapist/patient confidentiality, Anna springs into action, enlisting classmates who will probably star in future episodes of the Professionals series to set up an elaborate ambush. Though unmasked and foiled, Mr. Who makes his escape: Stay tuned. Illustrated at section heads with lurid portraits by Fabry, a comics artist, and supported by an elaborate website, this series opener may well prove irresistible to Disney Channel fans and, for that matter, its executives. (Fiction. 10-12)