Snake Head is the seventh book in the Alex Rider series (eight books by Anthony Horowitz). In these books Alex Rider, a teenage spy, is persuaded by intelligence agencies from all over the world to work for them.
Alex’s father was a talented spy who died with his mother in an “accidental” plane crash when Alex was young. Alex was brought up by his uncle and a young housekeeper. The series begins with his uncle’s death. Alex finds that his uncle was also a spy. Alex is ideal for the use of the MI6, ASIS and CIA as he is a skilled skier, mountain biker, scuba diver, climber and has a black belt in karate (almost as though his uncle had been grooming him with useful skills for a spy). He also thinks fast, weighs up all the options and makes sensible decisions.
In this book Alex travels widely, starting by splashing down from space in the Australian ocean. He goes to Bangkok with his godfather Ash, gets taken to Darwin in a cargo boat by the snake head, he gets taken to an illegal organ transplant clinic hidden in the Australian bush and finally escapes and stops the Royal Blue from detonating and causing a tsunami that would wipe out Australia. Alex is at first persuaded by the ASIS to work for them act as a cover for his godfather Ash like he did in Skeleton Key. He chooses to cooperate in hope that he might learn about his parents, who knew Ash well. He ends up fighting for his life against terrorist groups Snake Head and Scorpia.
I think Snake Head is the second best book in the series so far. The best was Point Blanc, in which Alex is sent to a French school for rich boys to find out about the assassination of the fathers of two of the boys there. I liked Snake Head because of the good variety of characters and plot. The plot is also topical in that it features illegal organ harvesting, a pacific tsunami, refugee smuggling and state of the art modern weaponry.
-- Logan
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