Anthony Horowitz’s Crocodile Tears is a dark, fast Alex Rider thriller for 11 year olds that starts with a bomb and moves to a very grand New Year’s Eve party in a Scottish castle.<\/p>\n
It’s the eighth Alex Rider book. If your reader hasn’t met him yet, start with Stormbreaker, because this one leans on a lot of what has already happened to him.<\/p>\n
The first chapter isn’t about Alex at all. A worker at a nuclear power station in India is paid to smuggle explosives inside in his toolbox. It goes badly wrong, people die, and a charity called First Aid is on the scene with help almost at once.<\/p>\n
Then we’re in the Highlands. Alex is fourteen and spending New Year with his friend Sabina and her family. It’s been a very rough year for him, and he’s decided he’s finished with spying for good. (We all know how that’s going to go.)<\/p>\n
The party is at Kilmore Castle, home of the Reverend Desmond McCain. He’s a former boxer who can only eat soft food. He was a politician who went to prison for burning down one of his own buildings. And now he runs First Aid.<\/p>\n
Sabina’s dad is a journalist who has written about McCain and couldn’t find anything bad to say. Alex slips into the castle’s card room for a closer look and isn’t so sure. Before long a game of cards between them turns into something far more dangerous.<\/p>\n
It reads like an action film. There’s a snowstorm, a castle lit by candles and full of suits of armour, and a host with a big warm laugh you can’t quite trust. If your reader loves danger and a hero who secretly wishes he could just be an ordinary schoolboy, they’ll tear through it.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing about that opening chapter. It’s graphic. The bomb kills the man who sets it and several engineers around him, and around a hundred people die in the panic afterwards. Alex also looks back on how often he’s been hurt. It sits at the tougher end of the shelf, and a sensitive reader could find the start far too much. A reader who has already enjoyed the earlier books will know what to expect.<\/p>\n
If they love the idea of young people going where adults can’t, City Spies is another team of kids working for British intelligence, starting with a girl hacker from Brooklyn who’s just been sprung from a courtroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anthony Horowitz’s Crocodile Tears is a dark, fast Alex Rider thriller for 11 year olds that starts with a bomb and moves to a very grand New Year’s Eve party in a Scottish castle. It’s the eighth Alex Rider book. If your reader hasn’t met him yet, start with Stormbreaker, because this one leans on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10538,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":10460,"lr_next_read_anchor":"City Spies","lr_seo_hook":"A charity boss with a shady past and a card game that turns deadly.","lr_series_id":234,"lr_series_name":"Alex Rider","lr_series_position":8,"lr_series_label":""},"book_tag":[1050],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[119],"class_list":["post-10539","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-action-books","age_group-books-for-11-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-anthony-horowitz"],"yoast_title":"Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A charity boss with a shady past and a card game that turns deadly. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n