Eagle Strike

Anthony Horowitz's Eagle Strike is a spy thriller for 11 year olds that finds Alex Rider on a lovely summer holiday, right up until he spots a face he knows on a yacht.

What happens

Alex is fourteen and staying by the beaches of the Camargue in France with his friend Sabina and her parents. It's all swimming, sunshine and Sabina scoring French boys out of twenty (Alex gets twelve and a half). He's worked for MI6 three times now and he just wants to be normal for a bit.

Then Yassen Gregorovich steps off that yacht. He's a contract killer, and Alex has crossed paths with him before. Alex tells himself it's none of his business.

That afternoon, the holiday house is blown apart. Sabina's dad, a journalist, is flown to hospital badly hurt. The French police decide it was a gas leak and won't listen to a word Alex says.

So he goes after Yassen himself. That's where it really takes off. There's a fight on a dark jetty, a sneaky search of the yacht and a night in the town's bullring that you won't forget in a hurry.

It's fast and very gripping. You feel Alex's guilt (he's sure it's his fault for doing nothing) and his fury at being treated like a silly child. Underneath the action there's a big question he keeps coming back to. Could he actually pull a trigger if he had to?

Somewhere in all this is something called Eagle Strike, and a mega-famous celebrity called Damian Cray who Sabina's dad had been writing about. Where that leads, you'll have to find out.

Be aware this one gets dark quickly. It opens in the Amazon with two hired killers and a black widow spider. A family is caught in a bomb blast, a man comes at Alex with a flick knife, and Alex holds a gun to a man's head as he lies on his bed. For a young reader who is easily frightened, that's a lot.

For a thrill-seeker who has already met Alex, it's gripping stuff. It's his fourth mission, though, and it leans on what came before, so Stormbreaker is the place to start.

What to read next

For something by the same author with far more laughs and a lot less danger, try The Falcon's Malteser. Nick is thirteen and much better at being a private detective than his hopeless big brother, and a mysterious package lands on their desk.