目录

Overview

Snakehead is the seventh novel in the Alex Rider series written by British author Anthony Horowitz. The book was released in Australia on 28 September 2007, in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2007, and in the US on 13 November 2007. The title comes from the name given to Asian gangs involved in people smuggling illegal passports, visas, weapons, and more. Snakehead takes place directly after the events of Ark Angel, with Alex finding himself in Australian waters where he landed at the end of that story.

Snakehead was shortlisted for the 2008 Booktrust Teenage Prize.

Author

Anthony Horowitz is the author of the number one bestselling Alex Rider books and The Power of Five series. He has enjoyed huge success as a writer for both children and adults, most recently with the latest adventure in the Alex Rider series, Russian Roulette and the highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk. His latest novel, Moriarty, is also set in the world of Sherlock Holmes and was published in October 2014. Anthony was also chosen by the Ian Fleming estate to write the new James Bond novel which will be published next year. Anthony has won numerous awards, including the Bookseller Association/Nielsen Author of the Year Award, the Children's Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards, and the Red House Children's Book Award. In 2014 Anthony was awarded an OBE for Services to Literature. He has also created and written many major television series, including Injustice, Collision and the award-winning Foyle's War.

Plot

Alex Rider lands in the South Pacific after blowing up the Ark Angel in outer space. He is picked up by the USS Kitty Hawk, a US aircraft carrier, where he recovers from his trip into space. He is sent to a military base in Swanbourne, Australia, and spends some time with a few of the soldiers there. One day before his departure, he goes to a barbecue with them but finds himself on a minefield by accident, only narrowly escaping being killed by leaping off an armed landmine. Alex is puzzled by the incident. Meanwhile, the criminal organization Scorpia is hired to assassinate eight celebrities who are hosting a conference to rival the G8 summit on Reef Island, an island off the north-west coast of Australia, and to make the deaths look accidental so as not to raise suspicions of sabotage. Scorpia board member Winston Yu, the head of a powerful Asian snakehead gang, is charged with this mission. Two days later, SCORPIA agents break into a Ministry of Defence weapons research centre and steal a prototype bomb code-named "Royal Blue", known to be more powerful and devastating than the daisy cutter.

Meanwhile in Australia, Ethan Brooke, head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) coerces Alex into helping him by pairing him with agent Ash, who was his godfather and once his father's best friend, to investigate the snakehead ring under Winston Yu, after having two failed attempts to infiltrate the organisation. Alex then travels to Bangkok, Thailand where he meets Ash who explains their plan; he and Alex will take on the identities of Afghan refugees who have paid the snakehead to smuggle them into Australia. Throughout their journey they have to identify key members of the snakehead and find out how they generally operate. They are given disguises and sent to an area in Chinatown to await contact from the snakehead.

To collect the papers necessary for them to move on to Indonesia, Alex is told by a Snakehead member Anan Sukit to fight against the snakehead's toughest fighter in a Muay Thai boxing ring, which he wins by cheating. However, the unexpected victory incites a riot which Alex manages to escape when someone (later revealed to be a MI6 operative) cuts the lights and attacks. The next day, while Ash goes to the snakehead to retrieve the papers, Alex tails a suspicious-looking man who has been observing him since he landed in Bangkok. The man turns the tables and later 'captures' him, but Alex finds that he is Ben Daniels, an MI6 agent who had trained with him before (as "Fox" in the first edition, or "Wolf" in later editions). Alex is then briefed about "Royal Blue" by Mrs. Jones, and learns that Major Yu is actually a member of SCORPIA. He agrees to try and locate Royal Blue for MI6, and is given several gadgets by Smithers to use, including a watch with a homing beacon for MI6 to find him, three exploding Thai coins (one baht, five baht, and ten baht) and a belt equipped with jungle survival gear.

After retrieving the papers, the two continue on to Jakarta, Indonesia; during the journey Ash shares about Alex's father, John and Ash's botched mission in taking John out of Scorpia, forcing Ash to resign from MI6 and emigrate to Australia. In the snakehead's toy factory Unwin Toys, they are briefly apprehended by Kopassus, but Alex and Ash manage to make it to a port and board a container ship, the Liberian Star. However, the two of them are separated and put into separate containers. Alex escapes from his container by using one of his coins and explores the ship. He eventually finds Royal Blue, scanning his own fingerprints to gain control of the bomb after seeing Yu scanning his. However, he goes into hiding when Major Yu, who heard that there is a boy who escaped from the containers, orders that he be captured or killed. The next day, Alex escapes the ship and reaches Darwin using another coin, which damages the reefers. However, to Alex's dismay, Ash is found to have been caught, and Alex thus surrenders to Yu, who knocks him unconsciousness.

When Alex wakes up he is invited to dinner with Yu, who explains his life story about being raised in Hong Kong and later being sent to Britain to be educated. He reveals his plan to cause a tsunami to destroy Reef Island and stop the conference, along with the west coast of Australia. Alex is then sent to a hospital in the Australian rainforest where he is to be used as an unwilling donor for illegal organ transplants, to pay for his damage to SCORPIA both in the 'Invisible Sword' project and on the Liberian Star. However, Alex manages to escape and establish contact with MI6. Along with Ben Daniels, Alex is sent as part of an SAS team to the oil rig where Royal Blue will be detonated.

On the oil rig, Alex and Ben confront Yu and his assistant; Ben shoots the assistant, who is revealed to be Ash. Ash confesses about being a double agent for SCORPIA following the botched mission mentioned earlier and his involvement in the death of Alex's parents, before he dies. Yu escapes, but Alex detonates the bomb early and it goes off relatively harmlessly; the only casualty is Yu, who is killed in the resulting shock wave due to his inordinately fragile bone structure.

At the end of the novel, Jack Starbright, Alex's housekeeper, calls a mysterious guest over for dinner. Alex is surprised to see the guest is Sabina Pleasure, his old friend who moved to San Francisco after the events of Eagle Strike. Both discuss plans to visit a castle in Scotland.The epilogue shows Ash's involvement in the death of his parents.