Product Description

Splashing down off the coast of Australia, Alex is soon working undercover – this time for ASIS, the Australian Secret Service – on a mission to infiltrate the criminal underworld of South-East Asia: the ruthless world of the Snakehead. Faced with an old enemy and troubled by his own past, Alex is caught between two secret services, with no one to trust – and this time he needs all his wits to survive...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #694 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-10
• Released on: 2008-04-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Synopsis
Splashing down off the coast of Australia, Alex is soon working undercover - this time for ASIS, the Australian Secret Service - on a mission to infiltrate the criminal underworld of South-East Asia: the ruthless world of the Snakehead. Faced with an old enemy and troubled by his own past, Alex is caught between two secret services, with no one to trust - and this time he needs all his wits to survive...

About the Author
Anthony Horowitz is the creator of the phenomenal Alex Rider books and the bestselling Power of Five series and was recently voted the 2007 BA/Nielsen Author of the Year. He won the 2006 British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for Ark Angel and the 2003 Red House Children's Book of the Year Award for Skeleton Key. Anthony, who wrote the script for the Alex Rider movie Stormbreaker, also writes extensively for TV, with credits including Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War. He lives in Clerkenwell, London.

Customer Reviews

SENSATIONAL
The name of this review speaks for itself. I got Stormbreaker for my birthday and delayed reading it but when I did I loved it. Best book i'd read in ages. So what do you know I ordered the rest of the series of Amazon as including this book they were as I said SENSATIONAL!!

A great book not as good as the first
I am a fan, but this was not as good as the first book. Its abit like Cody Banks.
However it is still a great read, I am an adult and I enjoy these fast pace books. All the Alex Rider, Cody Banks, Young James Bond and Jason Steed books have been fast and great reading.
I dont know why they call them Young Adult, they are great for all ages.
My top 5 would have to be
1) Fledgling Jason Steed.
2) Blood Fever, Young James Bond.
3) Alex Rider, Strombreaker.
4) Agent Cody Banks.
6) Double or Die, Young James Bond.

another descriptive and fast paced Rider novel
Alex Rider returns for another action packed adventure where he drops down on Australian land and is recruited by the ASIS to go undercover in a snakehead, which will ultimately bring him back to an old deadly enemy.

In the 7th instalment of the acclaimed series, Horowitz again uses a brilliant depth and accurate view of the world through researching all of the elements to be used in his novel, which has to be admired, and through this, do readers get a great description of what is happening and a very descriptive approach to the novel.

This research conforms brilliantly to what Horowitz has chosen Rider to do this time, in exploring boats, Australia, science, bombs plus other meaningful and wonderful things that are all well developed and executed by one of the best children's fiction writers of recent years.

Though not as intriguing as the first couple of novels, Snakehead packs a deadly bite into the Alex Rider story with a very dramatic twist on Alex's personal life, by including Alex's godfather, who is an intriguing character to read about from start to finish.

Again Alex is put in a do or die situation at many points and a high authority blackmails him in a way to get him to do a job. Horowitz again writes with a sense of purpose, and an inevitability that is gripping and is almost impossible to put the book down when a major event is happening.

The book conforms to the genre brilliantly, with chases, fights, helicopters and guns etc, the typical conventions of the action genre. And as usual, here is a question of the realistic outcomes of situations but even so are deadly exciting and edge of your seat reading with a great central lead.

This is perhaps a more emotional book than the others with Alex growing up and higher stakes than usual and the other Rider books have more intensity but regardless it is an action packed adventure and the stakes are once again, raised to a great extreme with Horowitz's pin point accuracy.

8/10