Anthony Horowitz is a prolific writer for TV including Midsomer Murders and the outstanding Foyle's War. He was chosen by the Sherlock Holmes estate to write a new mystery The House Of Silk, in which Sherlock investigates a sex slavery ring that even appals his rival Moriarty.
The Alex Rider spy novels were his series written to appeal to both teens and adults. They are as exciting as James Bond and follow some of the same conventions, but there is a lack of guns, blood, and torture that the Bond novels have. It was refreshing to read a thriller that was one action-packed sequence after another, relying on story rather than shock.
Fourteen year old Alex Rider has no parents and lives with his uncle Ian, a banker. As Stormbreaker opens, Alex Rider's uncle is killed in a car accident. He now lives with an American caretaker, Miss Jack Starbright.
On a visit to his uncle's office, he finds out the firm is a cover for MI6, and Ian was a British spy. That would explain why he was always teaching Alex fighting and undercover techniques, several languages, without telling him they might come in handy one day. He was taught mountain climbing, diving, skiing, karate and several languages, perhaps grooming him to be a spy as well.
MI6 sees his potential and offers him the chance to participate in an undercover fact gathering operation. If he doesn't, he will go to a home, and Jack Starbright will go back to America. He is sent off to the Special Operations Unit for mission training, and is soon on his way to Port Tallon, Cornwall.
His mission: find out why billionaire Herod Sayle is giving every child and school in the UK a newly developed computer called Stormbreaker for free. Alex's uncle Ian was on this case before he was killed, and he uses clues placed by Ian to expose the scheme.
I won't tell you more about Stormbreaker, it is filled with intrigue and action! There is the evil mastermind who keeps a giant jellyfish tank in his palatial office, a creepy henchman named Mr. Grin who has been haphazardly stitched up after a car bomb incident, and of course, an MI6 gadgetmaker providing him with unobtrusive tools and weapons for the mission. Being a teen, they make a point of not giving him a gun, and the action sequences benefit from that. Exciting chases and fights hinge on his athletic abilities and intellect more than just shooting everything up. Swimming through pools in sunken mines, ATV attacks and a wild fight on a plane more than meet the thrills of Ian Fleming.
Horowitz has a way of writing to entertain casual readers as well as thriller fans.
His writing is simple but filled with nuance and foreshadowing, it really sets up the whole series nicely.
This series was an instant bestseller, and they made this first book into a movie called Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker, as well as launching a series of graphic novels.
I have read more right after this one, and recommend them to anyone who likes a fun, exciting read.
2000 / Tradeback / 234 pages
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