“Night came quickly to Skeleton Key.”

From Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider: Skeleton Key.

Despite how closely he came to death during his last mission for MI6, Alex Rider finds himself being thrust back into danger as a teenage spy; MI6 has been assigned a cover story as a ball boy at Wimbledon, where things go from good (like befriending a pretty girl named Sabina) to terrible (like almost being killed by a Chinese gang member).  Alex’s interaction with the gang’s almost-assassin points him towards a place (Skeleton Key) and a person (General Alexei Sarov), both of which are wrapped in just enough mystery to be deadly.  In an attempt to keep Alex safe and unnoticed, he is sent to America with two CIA agents… the only problem is that Alex’s “parents” despise him because he’s teenager that’s been shoved into their laps on top of a dangerous mission.  Alex is left out of most of the details and discoveries of the early stages of the mission except for the information that he can piece together himself, but Alex’s cleverness and training quickly becomes all that separates the world from the disaster that is being planned around Skeleton Key.  Alex’s every move forces him to deal with life-or-death situations unlike anything this teenage spy could ever could have imagined.