Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz is a book for all you action lovers out there, particularly if you’re fond of a bit of mystery in the mix! This book is the first in a long series following 14 year old boy, Alex Rider, as he discovers his real heritage, and manages life as a young teenage spy. At the start of this book, we discover that Alex’s uncle, Ian, has died in an accident. Soon after this becomes apparent, we are told that Ian was not actually a banker like Alex was told, but a high ranking MI6 agent, and that he was killed in service of the country! If this isn’t a big enough revelation, Ian’s boss, Alan Blunt, blackmails Alex into becoming an MI6 agent by threatening to deport Jack Starbright, Alex’s American housekeeper and the only person he has left in the world! He agrees to become a spy and enters into a hard core training programme before he’s sent off on his first mission.
It’s important to realise that Alex has been secretly trained by his uncle without realising it! He can do martial arts, he can ski, he can rock climb, and navigate among many other things that spies need to do. This means he excels at his training, despite being the youngest and having to deal with some mean instructors! Indeed, he makes some useful friends at his spy training camp that might come in later in the book or series… who knows?!?
The super villain of this exciting story is Herod Sayle. Herod Sayle is in charge of a major research corporation that is building special computers called Stormbreakers for schools throughout the country, and maybe the world! MI6 want to continue investigating Sayle after Ian is killed in the process and so send in Alex undercover as a competition winner to test the prototype of the Stormbreaker. Whilst Alex is staying with Sayle to test the computer, he finds a map, from his uncle, which directs him to the rooms in which the mystery is unveiled. Sayle plans to poison all children with his computer which is filled with poisonous substances that will be released that the computer is turned on. Alex has to stop this from happening!
However, he is found out by Sayle and his associates and so has more immediate problems to deal with – like how to stay alive! Can Alex escape a fate similar to his Uncles? Will Alex save the day? Is there anything more to learn about his Uncle’s spy work? Are everybody who they seem to be? Stormbreaker is a tense, exciting, adventure of a novel which will keep you hooked until the very end! And once you reach the end, there’s always the next book in the series to keep you satisfied! So go and join Alex on his super spy mission and let us know if you manage to guess what happens before it does! If you can, I’ll be really impressed!
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