Skeleton Key (Alex Rider) - Hardcover

Horowitz, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399237771 ISBN 13: 9780399237775

Publisher: Philomel Books, 2003

Synopsis

Alex Rider will soon be a star in his very own TV series! 

Alex Rider is an orphan turned teen superspy who's saving the world one mission at a time—from #1 New York Times bestselling author! 

Alex Rider has been through a lot for his fourteen years. He's been shot at by international terrorists, chased down a mountainside on a makeshift snowboard, and has stood face-to-face with pure evil. Twice, young Alex has managed to save the world. And twice, he has almost been killed doing it. But now Alex faces something even more dangerous. The desperation of a man who has lost everything he cared for: his country and his only son. A man who just happens to have a nuclear weapon and a serious grudge against the free world. To see his beloved Russia once again be a dominant power, he will stop at nothing. Unless Alex can stop him first... Uniting forces with America's own CIA for the first time, teen spy Alex Rider battles terror from the sun-baked beaches of Miami all the way to the barren ice fields of northernmost Russia.
From the author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty.

About this title

About the Author

Anthony Horowitz (anthonyhorowitz.com) is a world-renowned screenwriter for film and television, having received multiple awards. And he is, of course, the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Alex Rider novels, which have become bestsellers the world over, spawned a major motion picture, and a line of graphic novels. A master of the spy thriller, Anthony is the only writer authorized by both the Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming Estates to write original Sherlock Holmes and James Bond novels, respectively. Anthony lives with his wife in London, England; they are parents to two grown boys. Follow Anthony on Twitter @AnthonyHorowitz.

Reviews

Grade 5-10-Fans of Horowitz's Stormbreaker (2001) and Point Blank (2002, both Philomel), and newcomers to the series alike, will not be disappointed with this rip-roaring escapade featuring the 14-year-old spy. Trying to return to a "normal" life as a schoolboy after a mere four weeks since his last MI6 adventure, Alex Rider is recruited right off the soccer field to check out some suspicious goings-on at Wimbledon. This assignment catapults him into a series of life-threatening episodes, such as coming face to face with a great white shark, dodging bullets as he dives off a burning boat, and being tied to a conveyor belt that is moving toward the jaws of a gigantic grindstone in an abandoned sugar factory. Soon the teen is single-handedly taking on his most dangerous enterprise yet. His mission is nothing short of saving the world from a nuclear attack, engineered by the psychopathic and egomaniacal former commander of the Russian army. Alex is armed only with a few specially designed gadgets, which are disarmingly age-appropriate: a Gameboy that doubles as a Geiger counter, a cell phone whose aerial shoots out a drugged needle that is activated by pressing 999, a Tiger Woods figurine that doubles as a small grenade when its head is twisted just so. This page-turning thriller leaves readers breathless with anticipation. When at last Alex returns home, his love interest, Sabina Pleasure, asks where he has been. "Well, I was, sort of- busy," he replies in a classic, understated, James Bond kind of way.
Elizabeth Fernandez, Brunswick Middle School, Greenwich, CT
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 6-9. Fourteen-year-old British secret agent Alex Rider, last heard from in Point Blank (2002), is back in another adventure. This time he's on an island near Cuba where he's up against a retired Russian general who plans to set off a nuclear device and, in the ensuing world chaos, take over the Russian government and restore the Soviet Empire. The general takes a shine to Alex once they meet, however, and he offers to adopt him as his son. Of course, this is the man's fatal mistake; Alex is there at the crucial moment to thwart the general's plans. This series unabashedly lifts details from the James Bond formula (minus the vodka martinis and casual sex) and transfers them to a novel for young adults. Yet, the Bond formula is the most successful in entertainment history, and there's no doubting the appeal of this action-packed spy novel. Todd Morning
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Philomel Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399237771
• ISBN 13: 9780399237775
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272