When Alex’s uncle dies in a car crash Alex immediately knows that something is wrong, Alex had lived with his uncle all his life, 14 years, and he knew that he was extremely careful. He never went anywhere without his seat belt on.

So after a strange car is seen speeding away from their house after his funeral he decides to have a look at the car itself. What he found was, was the car had not been destroyed in a crash, it had been shot at, there were bullet holes through the door and blood on the seat. When Alex is taken to the “bank” where Ian worked he did a little looking around of his own, and was caught, shot at and drugged.
When he came to he was in Whales, Allen Blunt and Mrs Jones, told him that his uncle worked for them, MI6, and was not a banker as he lead everyone to believe. they asked Alex, well they blackmailed him, to work for them when he agreed he was taken to the SAS training camp where he received a less then warm welcome from the men he was to train with, after 2 weeks it was time to leave, but not before saving the career of Wolf, his biggest adversary at the Camp.

He was introduced to Smithers, the MI6 scientist, and was given gadgets to help him on his way, what spy is complete without gadgets?

His mission was to investigate Herod Sayles, a multi-millionaire, is giving away thousands of his newest computers, Stormbreaker, to the children of London’s schools. Ian Rider was investigating the man and those machines when he was killed. MI6 was very suspicious of Sayles but with the death of Ian it just confirmed it, but they had nothing concrete so they sent in alex who found clues left by Ian and completed his mission. He encountered psycho villains, armed guards, a giant jellyfish that was only interested in eating him, and to finish everything: The very assassin who killed his uncle, who told him to leave MI6 forever and go back to school, that spy work was not for him.

Stormbreaker is the first novel in the Alex rider series by Anthony Horowitz and is followed by Point Blank, Skeleton Key, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, Ark Angel and Snakehead.

James Carkeek