Alex Rider
The Alex Rider book series is written by Anthony Horowitz, primarily for young adults.
The books are about the life of Alex Rider, a 14-year old orphan schoolboy working for MI6. He is often referred to as a youthful James Bond.
The five books are:
- Stormbreaker
- Point Blanc
- Skeleton Key
- Eagle Strike
- Scorpia
Plot Summaries
In Stormbreaker, Alex's uncle, Ian Rider, dies mysteriously in a so-called car accident. Alex is then forcibly recruited into MI6 after learning that his uncle was an agent. In Alex's first mission, he stops a crazed Lebanese industrialist from infecting the United Kingdom's schoolchildren with a genetically modified strain of smallpox, and in that book he meets Yassen Gregorovich.
In Point Blanc he stops a South African scientist named Dr Hugo Grief from replacing the teenaged sons of influential people with clones of himself - the Gemini Project.
Skeleton Key sees him stopping a Chinese triad from sabotaging the Wimbledon tennis championships, and then finds himself in Cuba, where he has to stop insane Russian General Alexei Sarov from using a nuclear weapon to make Russia a communist state.
In Eagle Strike he stops Damian Cray, a pop singer and fanatical environmentalist, from using the US nuclear armoury to destroy the world. At the end of that book he is told by the dying assassin Yassen Gregorovich that he must go to Venice if he wanted to find out the truth of his long dead father.
Alex follows Gregorovich's dying wish in Scorpia, and ends up stopping a criminal organisation using radio waves and nanotechnology to kill London's schoolchildren and sabotage the American-British Alliance. In the end he is told the truth of his father and is shot in the chest by a Scorpia sniper.
Characters
- Alan Blunt, head of MI6 Special Operations
- Mrs. Jones (first name: Tulip), deputy to Alan Blunt
- Smithers, the gadget expert at MI6
- Jack Starbright, Alex's caregiver
- Yassen Gregorovich, assassin
- John Crawley, a senior MI6 agent
- 'Wolf', an SAS commando
- Sabina Pleasure, friend to Alex
Characters unique to particular novels are listed below:
Stormbreaker
- Herod Sayle, a murderous industrialist
- Nadia Vole, a henchwoman
- Mr. Grin, a hideously scarred henchman
Point Blanc
- Michael J. Roscoe, billionaire owner of Roscoe Industries
- Sir David Friend, a supermarket tycoon
- Lady Caroline Friend, wife of Sir David
- Fiona Friend, their daughter
- Dr. Hugo Grief, sinister owner and headmaster of Point Blanc Academy
- Mrs Eva Stellenbosch, assistant director of Point Blanc Academy
- James Spritz, a pupil
- Mr Baxter, a plastic surgeon
- 'The Gentleman', the world's most successful contract killer
- 'Skoda', a small-time drug peddler
- Rufus, Fiona's boyfriend
Skeleton Key
- General Alexei Sarov, once second in command of the Red Army
- Conrad, a terrorist-for-hire and henchman to Sarov
- Boris Nikita Kiriyenko, the Russian president
- 'The Salesman', a black marketeer
- Joe Byrne, deputy director for operations, Covert Action section, CIA
- Belinda Troy, a special agent for the CIA
- Tom Turner, a special agent for the CIA
- Garcia, a Cuban boatman
Eagle Strike
- Damian Cray, millionaire pop star, philanthropist, and businessman
- Charlie Roper, a senior officer in the NSA
- Henryk, a pilot
- Raoul, a thug
- Franco, an auxiliary thug
- Marc Antonio, a French photographer
- Robert Guppy, a friend of Marc Antonio's
Scorpia
- Mrs. Julia Rothman, one of the executive committee of Scorpia
- Max Grendel, a Scorpia committee member
- Levi Kroll, a Scorpia committee member
- Dr Three, a Scorpia committee member
- Mr Mikato, a Scorpia committee member
- Nile, a Scorpia assassin
- Professor Oliver d’Arc, principal of Scorpia's training centre at Malagosto
- Gordon Ross, a weapons instructor at Malagosto
- Miss Binnag, a botany instructor at Malagosto
- Professor Yermalov, an instructor at Malagosto
- Charlie Grey, a teacher at Alex's school
- Tom Harris, a schoolfriend of Alex's
- Jerry Harris, Tom Harris's older brother
- Jane Bedfordshire, a teacher at Alex's school
- Dr. Liebermann, a scientist
- Dr. Karl Steiner, a psychiatrist
- Dr. Rachel Stephenson, an expert in nanotechnology
- Sir Graham Adair, permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office
- Mark Kelner, the Prime Minister's Director of Communications
- William Dearly, PA to Mrs Jones
- Lloyd and Ramirez, MI6 agents