But then today came and I found myself lying on the floor of the living room, barely able to move. The bright side to all this was that I got to read Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz.
This is the latest and last in the Alex Rider series and boy do they end it with a bang. Anyone who has read the series in the past, which should really be all of you, will know that it's the ninth book to be written about the teenage spy. I was slightly worried about reading it as, to my mind anyway, the last book had been weaker than the preceding ones, with less motive and a mixed-up way of getting Alex involved. But this one is better. Much better.
Alex is given the usual series of gadgets and sent off to Cairo. But this time it's different from the others. The book is split into two segments and Alex himself doesn't appear till the start of the second, page 129. The first part we come back to his old nemesis, Scorpia.
All great spy novels have their made-up, evil secret society, like Spectre in James Bond, and Scorpia is the one in Alex Rider. And at the start you find out that they're terrified of him. There's a slightly comical scene depicting all these terrorists round a table and they're all treating Alex like some sort of unlucky charm. As well they might, he's foiled them on two other occasions. But none-the-less they've got a new evil plan and Alex is at the heart of it.
So it starts with Scorpia making the plan and then continues with Alex walking right into it. The plot swerves all over the place. At first it seems Alex isn't going to fall for it, then it seems like his fate in inescapable. It does this several times in true Horowitz fashion.
There's a whole troop of characters from the past. As it is the last book there have to be a few familiar faces, though if you want something that references the series in a big way then I'd check out the previous book, Crocodile Tears, which did it to a much larger degree. The story of a lot of people is tied off and you learn some surprising things about them. I think one of the biggest emotional journeys you take is with Alan Blunt. You begin to feel sorry for him, then at the end it all changes.
It's not the biggest surprise but I don't want to spoil that one.
By the end of the book I was feeling quite sad. Not just because of the way it ends, which would be understandable, but because this really is the last. Anthony Horowitz said he'd stop when Alex reached fifteen and that time has arrived. Everything is wrapped up. All characters explored. There are no loose ends left. Show's over folks.
What else is there to say really? I give this book an eight out of ten. And we can only wait and see what gets written next.
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