Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider)

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However, when they land for refuelling at Laikipia, McCain (who used his larger plane to escape the flooding of his base) appears and shoots Rahim dead. Grabbing a rope hanging from a helicopter that is flying by when you are on a wobbly roof about to fall is hard enough. In typical Alex Rider style, he wins a round of Texas Hold 'em on someone else's money, donates it all back, and half a dozen or so pages later, the car he, Sabina, and Mr. However, throughout the Alex Rider series, I didn't really like the ideas that at some point in the story, the villain will eventually reveal their plans. Anthony Horowitz is pretty creative in coming up with new ways to keep bringing an increasingly reluctant Alex back to M16.

I do after all, come from a family where my mom shrieked the first time she saw me hug a male school mate. One of the joys of Twitter, incidentally, is that it allows readers to contact me directly and these 140-character exchanges are as valuable to me as what the professional critics have to say. The gist is that the same idiot journalist ratted Alex out to the bad guys, and was shot to death for his effort. Alex has been through so much in a year and i feel so bad for this kid because he keeps getting brought back into this world and after telling himself again and again.One problem I found was that unlike Snakehead and Scorpia there wasn't any of Alex's background even though it was gr8 :-) P. Forced to ask MI6 for protection, Alex finds himself being manipulated in a deadly game that could lead to the destruction of an entire East African country, but Alex manages to kill Desmond McCain in the end.

When his uncle is murdered in the first novel, Alex is recruited by the agency for both his talents and his age—because who would suspect a 14-year-old of being a spy?The journalist has the cheek to pop up at his house, while he’s having dinner, and offer to do an expose, and cut him a 50-50 deal from whatever he makes. I’m plowing through them at a rate of one a month this year so, since it is August, this must be the eighth book in the series. Anthony Horowitz becomes about 70% creepier as you begin to wonder just how much time he spent dwelling on creating the perfect kidnapping. Even though they are marketed as YA (and I am a little bit older than that, perhaps even considered OA), they are a delight to read. Rahim rescues Alex and tears up Alex's shirt in an attempt to fool McCain into thinking he was the one who was eaten by the crocodiles.

Anthony Horowitz needs to realise that eight books on, his formula is starting to get a liiiiitle bit old - it works when you are younger, but I guess the series just doesn't hold the same appeal for me anymore. During the journey, Sabina's father, Edward Pleasure, tells Alex about their host Desmond McCain: the story involves how McCain was found, as a baby, abandoned in a bag of McCain's Oven Chips (which is where his name comes from), his time as a professional boxer, becoming a property developer and MP for the Conservative Party, imprisonment for fraud, and apparent conversion to Christianity and founding a charity. He just wants to be a normal boy, but somehow, he's always tangled in the middle of another mad-man's schemes and impossibly saving the world. Most boys his age wouldn't walk away from a mystery or a grievance either, and would look for ways to strike back.

But the only reason I didn't give this five stars is because it doesn't make sense why the villain didn't kill him before it was too late (he had a thousand chances). It's just a fast, adrenaline charged experience with mindless action and feats that would bring Bruce Wayne to his knees. But as I grew older (and my original audience entered their twenties) I felt a need to move into adult writing. I loved the rooftop race with the ductwork and the time when Alex hung suspended over the hungry crocodiles. He has a distinct voice that makes me feel like I could pick out his writing anywhere, even if I didn't know who the author really was.