Skeleton Key (Alex Rider, #3)

by Anthony Horowitz

Alex Rider is now an IMDb TV/Amazon Original Series!

Alex Rider is an orphan turned teen superspy who's saving the world one mission at a time—from #1 New York Times bestselling author!

Alex Rider has been through a lot for his fourteen years. He's been shot at by international terrorists, chased down a mountainside on a makeshift snowboard, and has stood face-to-face with pure evil. Twice, young Alex has managed to save the world. And twice, he has almost been killed doing it. But now Alex faces something even more dangerous. The desperation of a man who has lost everything he cared for: his country and his only son. A man who just happens to have a nuclear weapon and a serious grudge against the free world. To see his beloved Russia once again be a dominant power, he will stop at nothing. Unless Alex can stop him first. Uniting forces with the CIA for the first time, teen spy Alex Rider battles terror from the sun-baked beaches of Miami all the way to the barren ice fields of northernmost Russia.

• ISBN10: 0142406147
• ISBN13: 9780142406144
• Publish Date: 16 February 2006 (first published 8 July 2002)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: AU
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Puffin
• Format: Paperback (US Digest)
• Pages: 368
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780142406144

Reviews

I loved Alex Rider as a kid. I must have read the first five books like fifty million times. Since I'm in the middle of a Cherub reread I thought I'd come back to Alex. It's kind of funny reading them now - I don't quite remember them being so depressing. Alex is a lot more jaded than I ever remember him being. It's also warranted but yeah. MI6 and Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones make me so angry. Poor Alex gets screwed way too often. I also remember Alex being a lot more talented than he is. But to my adult eyes, it seems like he's getting by more on luck than pure ability. Still they're great books with lots of action. I probably would only rate it 4 stars these days, but I'm going to stick with my original rating for posterity.

(show spoiler)[
Alex always gets the short end of the stick. I agree with him - I think he was outmaneuvered by M16 - Crawley planned it all. It all happened too neatly. But he gets to meet Sabina so that's cool. Maybe not worth it - but cool nonetheless. It sucks that they're willing to send him into danger but never tell him what he's going to be up against. But Alex has a lucky streak when it comes to missions, danger and bad guys. Hence the shark.
] (hide spoiler)