Jim's Books

Snakehead

Anthony Horowitz

Snakehead
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ISBN: 9781406310399

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.

Reviewed on 24th November 2013

Alex Rider returns in a direct continuation from the previous novel, which sees him team up with the Australian Secret Service to try to crack a people smuggling operation. It's another thrilling and fast-moving action novel, although seems to be borrowing more and more from the format of the James Bond films.

The novel introduces some interesting new characters and motivations, and is clearly trying to enrich the world that the stories inhabit. There's also some threat that's unexpectedly strong for an entry in this series, though it's written very much with the target audience in mind, and the reader isn't exposed to anything too traumatic, just the idea.

One thing that's emphasised heavily in this book is the short amount of time that has passed since Alex Rider's first adventure. Presumably this is to make him seem the right age still for the target audience, but for me had the effect of breaking the flow of the narrative and making the overarching story seem less plausible - this is the seventh book after all.

Overall though it makes for a good adventure that explores a much wider setting than before, delves into the past, and builds up the overall plot that's been developing throughout the series.

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