Customer Reviews
Great series, fast story - By: Sid Lynch, 12 Sep 2008 
This is a great story, again Anthony Horowitz has us on the egde of our seats.
The story has a very similair theme to the Young James bond book Hurricane Gold. In Skeleton Key Alex Rider & Hurricane Gold Young James Bond, both teen hereos are on a hot tropical island owned by a villian, both villians want to adopt the young teen heros, despite the youngsters trying to spoil there plans. Both villians let the boys go. However both are fast paced & good reading. Its a shame they have followed the same pathm but if you are into Alex Rider, Jason Steed, Cherub & Young James Bond this is still a great book.
Worst of the series - By: K. Hewitson, 06 Jan 2008 
It is worth reading only to keep up with the story when reading the series.
The plot is thin & the new characters andespecially the main villian sargeant guy are just annoying.
Good series, just a bad book.
A GOOD BOOK YET IT IS SLIGHTLY UNREALISTIC AT TIMES - By: R. Harrison, 23 Dec 2007 
I have enjoyed all the booksin the alex rider series & i like this book very much. I find the humor fuuny & unlike some of the sencesin some of the cherub books it is sutiabal for all ages. My main critisisum of the Alex Rider series is that he does things that are unrealisic of a 15 year old kid with a BMX. Overall a good series but if above the age of 12 i would strongly recommend the cherub books instead as i find they are much more realisic.
A Great Book! - By: Mrs. G. Garside, 17 Dec 2007 I am going to tell you about an action packed book about a boy called Alex Rider who works for MI5 & he wants to be a normal boy. MI5 sent him to Skeleton Key for a holiday but they lied to him. He gets a fake passport so now one nows who he is & he meets two people called Belinda Troy & Tom Turner who fake that they are his parents. Then they die. They get killedin General Sarov's trap. Then General Sarov catches Alex & askes him to be his son. Alex refuses. Then he finds out that General Sarov is planing to do something bad. I think you should try it. It is very interesting. It includes sharks, assasins & terrorists. There are more books about Alex Rider & you find out how his parents die.
Much more satisfying than the previous books (minor spoilers within) - By: tybalt-quin, 13 Jun 2007 General Sarov is a very credible villain with an interesting motivation - the break up of the USSR, the death of his son at the hands of a sniper - you do believe that this is a man who has lost everything. It also gives him a believable reason for liking Alex & wanting him to become a kind of replacement & Horowitzin turn gives Alex a human reaction - there's a degree of compassion for the man but at the same time a recognition that he's totally freaking nuts & needs to be stopped.
The wayin which MI6 continues to blackmail Alex into working for them is beginning to wear a little thin. There was a neater set up here - Parker seeking to use Alex at Wimbledon to find out why there was a break-in at the tournament without anything being stolen was well handled, but the whole thing about the Triads all being out to hunt him down for hurting one of their own stretched my patience.
The scenes concerning the CIA agents - Carver & Troy had a nice build-up, although I was irritated that they had the female agent, Troy, being the one who was concerned about Alex's safety. It seems that Horowitz is a bit of a one-trick pony when it comes to the older female characters - they all have maternal feelings if they're over 20.
Tell rather than show remains a big issuein the books, although I'm beginning to get more used to it. One thing that I do give a big thumbs up to is Alan Blunt - he just gets colder & more self-serving with every book & I really like the fact that he doesn't even pretend to care about what Alex wants. I wish that Mrs Jones could have that same ruthless quality given to her because I'm beginning to find her a little too squeamish.
