Skeleton Key (New Windmills)
£5.22
Great series, fast story - This is a great story, again Anthony Horowitz has us on the egde of our seats.The story has a very similair theme to the Young James bond book Hurricane Gold. In Skeleton Key Alex Rider and Hurricane Gold Young James Bond, both teen hereos are on a hot tropical island owned by a villian, both villians want to adopt the young teen heros, despite the youngsters trying to spoil there plans. Both villians let the boys go. However both are fast paced and good reading. Its a shame they have followed the same pathm but if you are into Alex Rider, Jason Steed, Cherub and Young James Bond this is still a great book.
Worst of the series - It is worth reading only to keep up with the story when reading the series. The plot is thin and the new characters andespecially the main villian sargeant guy are just annoying. Good series, just a bad book.
A GOOD BOOK YET IT IS SLIGHTLY UNREALISTIC AT TIMES - I have enjoyed all the books in the alex rider series and i like this book very much. I find the humor fuuny and unlike some of the sences in some of the cherub books it is sutiabal for all ages. My main critisisum of the Alex Rider series is that he does things that are unrealisic of a 15 year old kid with a BMX. Overall a good series but if above the age of 12 i would strongly recommend the cherub books instead as i find they are much more realisic.
A Great Book! - I am going to tell you about an action packed book about a boy called Alex Rider who works for MI5 and he wants to be a normal boy. MI5 sent him to Skeleton Key for a holiday but they lied to him. He gets a fake passport so now one nows who he is and he meets two people called Belinda Troy and Tom Turner who fake that they are his parents. Then they die. They get killed in General Sarov s trap. Then General Sarov catches Alex and askes him to be his son. Alex refuses. Then he finds out that General Sarov is planing to do something bad. I think you should try it. It is very interesting. It includes sharks, assasins and terrorists. There are more books about Alex Rider and you find out how his parents die.
Much more satisfying than the previous books (minor spoilers within) - General Sarov is a very credible villain with an interesting motivation - the break up of the USSR, the death of his son at the hands of a sniper - you do believe that this is a man who has lost everything. It also gives him a believable reason for liking Alex and wanting him to become a kind of replacement and Horowitz in turn gives Alex a human reaction - there s a degree of compassion for the man but at the same time a recognition that he s totally freaking nuts and needs to be stopped. The way in which MI6 continues to blackmail Alex into working for them is beginning to wear a little thin. There was a neater set up here - Parker seeking to use Alex at Wimbledon to find out why there was a break-in at the tournament without anything being stolen was well handled, but the whole thing about the Triads all being out to hunt him down for hurting one of their own stretched my patience. The scenes concerning the CIA agents - Carver and Troy had a nice build-up, although I was irritated that they had the female agent, Troy, being the one who was concerned about Alex s safety. It seems that Horowitz is a bit of a one-trick pony when it comes to the older female characters - they all have maternal feelings if they re over 20. Tell rather than show remains a big issue in the books, although I m beginning to get more used to it. One thing that I do give a big thumbs up to is Alan Blunt - he just gets colder and more self-serving with every book and I really like the fact that he doesn t even pretend to care about what Alex wants. I wish that Mrs Jones could have that same ruthless quality given to her because I m beginning to find her a little too squeamish.