“Fifty thousand people had come to Suffolk Air Show on the east coast of England.”

From Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider: Never Say Die.

In the past few weeks, Alex Rider’s world has crumbled more than he ever thought possible; his housekeeper and lifelong friend Jack Starbright has been murdered, Alex has left MI6, and has moved to America with Sabina’s family.  Heartbroken over Jack’s death, Alex struggles in almost every area of his life until a mysterious email changes everything.  Alex believes that the message is from Jack and that she must still be alive, so he heads off to Egypt in search of any clue to Jack’s whereabouts.  In Cairo, Alex finds several small clues, perhaps the most important being a single word scratched on the wall: Grimaldi.  New director, Mrs. Jones and the rest of MI6 are quickly alerted to Alex’s global search for Jack, but they are currently occupied with a missing helicopter and believe Jack to be dead, so Mrs. Jones tells Alex to return to America.  Being Alex, he refuses to give up on Jack and continues on his search which eventually connects him back with MI6 on an unofficial mission that could cost Alex everything.

Six years after the previous Alex Rider novel was announced to be the series finale (and four years after the stand alone Russian Roulette), Horowitz surprised fans by resurrecting the series.  While the story is captivating, exciting, and everything that makes the series such a joy to read, there is one major problem with this revival: Alex is still just 14-years-old; after so many books/adventures and such a long hiatus, it feels like more time should have elapsed in the main character’s life than just a few weeks.  This issue will most likely be diminished with the future books, but ultimately, it should not take away from the truly fun spy read that is Never Say Die.