“When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news.”

From Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider: Stormbreaker.

Since his parents’ deaths many years ago, Alex Rider has lived with his uncle, Ian, and a housekeeper named Jack (she often looks after Alex when Ian is away on business).  Ian and Alex have traveled the world, mastered various extreme sports, and trained in several martial arts.  Although, that life is over now, because Ian has been killed in a car accident and Alex’s world quickly falls apart.  MI6 (British secret intelligence) approaches Alex to inform him that not only was Ian a spy that had been murdered on his last mission, but that he had been preparing Alex to be a spy, as well.  While Alex struggles with this news, MI6 asks him to go undercover with the very people who may be responsible for Ian’s death.  Initially, he refuses, but Alex is also consumed by the desire to find out what/why/who is connected with his uncle’s murder, so Alex eventually agrees.  MI6 is wary of Herod Sayle and his offer to provide his new state-of-the-art computer system to every school in the UK for free, so Alex is given a handful of fun spy gadgets and sent to tour Sayle’s production facility in the hopes of finding out the real reason behind the man’s generosity.  Can one 14-year-old boy discover the truth about Sayle before it’s too late?

From start to finish, this book is full of action, suspense, and mystery.  The characters are honest and believable, especially Alex who is a clever teen using his wit and skills to solve the many problems around him.  The mystery of the book is very fascinating with twists and turns throughout, but also a steady development that keeps building.  This first book in the Alex Rider series does very well to create a foundation from strong characters and story lines that urge the reader to continue in the series.