Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz

Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz is a adolescent fiction novel, it is the seventh in the Alex Rider series. Alex Rider is an Australian teenager who is roped into being a spy for the Australian Secret Service after his dad dies a mysterious death, back in the first book. The series is based on the journey that Alex takes to find out more about his dad and uncover the truth. His spy duties take him on missions all around the world as he slowly uncovers more and more about his father he realises that he can't trust anyone apart from himself.

Anthony Horowitz is an Australian author who was voted Author of the year in 2007. His writing style for this particular book and series is a third person narration with the story only following the movements of the character Alex Rider. This writing style allows the reader to share in the discoveries of Alex and to know only what he knows. It is as if you were his side kick following his ever move. Although Horowitz does not use a great amount of interesting verb and noun groups to drive the story, he maintains the reader's interest by keeping the story moving quickly as Alex engages in reconnesense, sky diving, fighting, high speed pursuits etc.

The whole book is constantly filled with tension and resolution (conflict and resolution) as Alex finds himself in many life threatening or endangering situation which require quick thinking and actions to avoid. These consistent actions keep the book interesting and leave you wanting to find out more about where the book will lead too. Often Alex discovers certain clues in relation to the criminal organisation he is tracking, these clues slowly build up until the final climax in which Alex uses his intelligence to attack the organisation and shut down their operations. Some of the resolutions are predicatable however their is almost always a hidden twist in this series which makes them worthwhile.

This book is quite an easy read due to the straight forward language used and logical chronologically based events in the story. It is a book aimed at teenagers and young adults.