Scorpia Rising

by Anthony Horowitz
part of the Alex Rider series, book 9 (the last one)

Rating: ****` (4.5 stars)
Age group: 10+
Type: Fiction

Scorpia is a terrorist group with recruits from all over the world. They are notoriously hard to catch and powerful beyond belief. However, there is one spy who has bested them before--MI6 member Alex Rider. Even though he's only 15, he's very good at his job. Even if Alex,  is a great spy though, he just wants to be a normal boy. But Alan Blunt, head of the MI6 (a British spy organization), wants Alex to take a mission in Cairo, Egypt, where a child is needed. The job? Infiltrate the Cairo International College of Arts and Education, the CICAE, and keep an eye on the principal, Erik Gunter, who might be trying to kidnap the wealthiest kids in the school. But what MI6 doesn't know is that  whole thing is a trap set by Scorpia to get rid of Alex once and for all. So when Alex is captured by Scorpia, he's in deep trouble.
This a great book. Anthony Horowitz is really good at writing action scenes. He makes them intense and suspenseful. He's also good at describing things, and that plus the action make for a really good book. There are a lot of sinister characters who make great antagonists, and the protagonists are proportionally good. Anthony Horowitz puts his characters into many sticky situations and he doesn't always try to protect them. Most of the time, they're on their own, and he even lets some of the good guys die. Overall, really wonderful book.