Alex Rider Stormbreaker
Anthony Horowitz
Walker Books

This is a silver edition celebrating the very first of the Alex Rider novels. The story begins with an ordinary fourteen year old boy being woken from his slumbers by the doorbell ringing. It’s the police with the news that his only known relation, Uncle Ian has been killed in a traffic accident. However, suspicious of the explanation he’s given, Alex starts his own investigation and discovers his uncle’s car full of bullet holes. Why kill a banker, he wonders, having just missed being crushed to death himself when his uncle’s BMW is tossed into the crusher.

When Alex climbs through a window to gain access to his uncle’s office it transpires that Uncle Ian was not a banker at all but a field agent for MI6 – a spy in other words. Before long Alex finds he’s been dragged into the world of cloak and dagger intrigue and espionage Then, having undergone an intensive programme of training, he reluctantly becomes MI6 youngest ever spy. His mission revolves around one Mr Herod Sayle and Alex sets about infiltrating Sayle’s operation and the revolutionary Stormbreaker computers set to be given to schools.

To call the assignment action-packed is a complete understatement: it’s totally gripping and has spawned a series that has become something of a rite of passage for pre-teen readers.
This 25th anniversary edition includes a brand new Alex Rider short story but you’ll have to get your own copy to discover what happens therein.