Book Review: Snakehead (An Alex Rider Adventure) by Anthony Horowitz

Alex Rider, 14-year-old spy for MIA, the British Intelligence Agency, is back in action. He sort of fell into the middle of it--literally, after his last mission. If you're not familiar with this best-selling series of children's spy adventures, don't worry. You can read this one first and catch up later. Here's what happens in Snakehead (An Alex Rider Adventure) by Anthony Horowitz.

Alex falls into his next adventure, literally. He splashes down from outer space into the ocean just off Australia. He still can't believe he was really in space, but he's happy to be back on solid ground (so to speak) and alive.

The USS Kitty Hawk is diverted from a training mission to pick him up, and the crew is sworn to secrecy. After all, who would believe that a teenager, and a spy at that, just fell from outer space?

Meanwhile, in an unobtrusive building, seven people were having an important meeting. They were the members of Scorpia, which stood for "sabotage, corruption, intelligence, and assassination." There had originally been twelve of them, all spies, who decided to go into business for themselves. However, several of them had died, or been killed, and they were all that remained.

Their targets are the members of an upcoming conference, which will be attended by various billionaires and celebrities, whose mission is to end poverty. But poverty keeps a nice balance in the world, Scorpia thinks, so these people must be eliminated.

Killing them off would be too easy. Instead, they must make their deaths appear to be accidents. To accomplish this, they plan to use a bomb deep in the ocean. The detonation should create a shockwave which will decimate the island where the conference is being held, as well as thousands of people around the world, who will fall victim to the resultant tsunami, just like the one that occurred in 2004.

Alex ends up being recruited by not one, but two international agencies this time, MIA and ASIS, the Australian counterpart. In yet another action-packed thriller, he finds himself roaming the streets of Bangkok in disguise, with another older agent.

There are returning villains from previous books in this one, the seventh book of the popular series. But this time, when Alex gets caught, his fate is an especially gruesome one.

Kids who are already fans of the series will find another heart-pounding one. Alex is certainly clever; he has a way of getting out of the most seemingly impossible situations, and certainly, luck is always on his side. Snakehead (An Alex Rider Adventure) by Anthony Horowitz is worth getting your heart racing for.

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Point Blank by Anthony Horowitz: A Book Review

Have you ever wanted to be a twin? Or maybe you've had the strange experience of meeting someone who looked so much like you that people have gotten you confused. This is part of the adventure that awaits Alex Rider in the second of his series of books, Point Blank, by Anthony Horowitz.

Almost immediately after finishing his first mission as a fourteen-year-old spy for the British Intelligence Agency, M16, Alex Rider is back on the job. He claims he didn't miss the work so much, but keeping what happened a secret was proving to be quite difficult.

This time he is sent undercover to a select school for boys high in the mountains of France. But before he leaves, he must spend some time with the family to which he is supposed to belong. There he meets Fiona Friend, a beautiful girl who knows it.

She is supposed to be his sister, and she reluctantly allows him to accompany her and her rich boyfriend and other male friends on a little hunting trip in the country. Alex soon realized, to his horror, that they intend to shoot him, and they do not seem to care at all if they are true to their aim. They are in the country, deep in the woods, and nobody would find him, and nobody would care.

His previous special training, plus his quick thinking, pay off and save his life, but he is on his guard around Fiona from that moment forward. Just before he leaves to go on his mission, he gives Fiona a shocking goodbye present that she will never forget.

Once in Paris, he stays overnight at a hotel and has dinner with Mrs. Stellenbosch, an enormous bull of a woman, with rippling muscles. She questions him about his history of poor behavior, including being expelled from school. Alex must be very careful to lie by sticking to the facts he had to study about his new identity.

Point Blanc Academy is a school for boys who have caused trouble at home. Their very rich parents have sent them there to be corrected. Alex meets the other handful of boys and begins to notice strange things, like the fact that they are so well behaved, and that there are only two teachers, but armed guards around practically every corner.

Soon Alex discovers the horrible truth about the school and its nefarious mission. The action is non-stop, just like in the first book of the series, and the characters are again memorable and creepy.

Lovers of thrillers and action will devour this book. There is no need to have read the first book, but once you read this one, you'll want to read that too, I'm sure. This is especially good for boys and reluctant readers, because the action and suspense draws you in easily. Point Blank, by Anthony Horowitz is another highly recommended read.

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Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz - A Book Review

Recommended for ages 9-12

Ever imagine you were a top-level spy? Fourteen-year-old Alex Rider never had. But he finds himself becoming one anyway, in the first Alex Rider book, Stormbreaker, by Anthony Horowitz.

Alex's uncle, who raised him, gets killed in a car accident. He supposedly wasn't wearing his seatbelt, but Alex knows something is amiss. His uncle was the last person who would ever ride without his seatbelt on...

After school, Alex makes his way to the junkyard, to examine the car for himself, and he nearly gets killed. Thus begins his sudden career as a spy for M16, Britain's top intelligence agency.

The next two weeks are devoted to tough special forces training. He is thrown in with grown men, having to run obstacle courses and doing what they do, with no special treatment. One of the men, Wolf, seems to want to cause trouble for him, and Alex is almost severely injured in an explosion because of something Wolf does to him.

After training, Alex gets sent off to the headquarters of Sayle Enterprises, a company run by Herod Sayle, a man who appears to the world to be a fine humanitarian. His generous gift to the world will be to make sure every school in the country gets one of his new, advanced, Stormbreaker computers.

Yet all is not as it seems. While investigating Mr. Sayle and his supposedly humanitarian company, Alex's uncle Ian was killed in the line of duty. Alex's job is to pick up where his uncle left off. His mission is to discover the secret behind the computers, and what will really happen on the day when they all go online at the same time.

Kids who love adventure will jump into this story, which is full of suspense and action. Alex gets chased, attacked by a giant jellyfish, shot at, and nearly drowns swimming underwater in the dark. There are surprises popping up all the time, and Alex is put to the limits of his intellectual and physical abilities.

The book reads like a suspense thriller, and it's hard to put down. Reluctant readers will get drawn into the activity and want to continue with the rest of the series.

Recommended for ages 9 to12, it does include some violence, although Alex himself refuses to do any killing. Kids will feel like they have almost been spies themselves, after reading the first Alex Rider book, Stormbreaker, by Anthony Horowitz.

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