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Felix Taylor (aged 15) rounds up thrilling books for boys, with the help of his younger brothers
Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz (Walker Books 12.99). Alex Rider, black belt in karate, fluent in three languages, teenage MI6 agent, has just fallen from space into the sea. The Australian Secret Service rescues him from his little ship, and takes him back to their base. After studying his files, they want him to work for them. Alex refuses and goes to a barbecue. But then he gets lost and steps on a bomb and is told later it was a test. He decides to work for them after all. Their aim: to stop Scorpia, a group of people who appeared in a previous book, who intend to destroy the Reef Conference - celebrities wanting to make poverty history - by making a tsunami engulf the island on which the conference is being held.
This is the seventh book in the Alex Rider series. Personally, I got bored after the third one, Skeleton Key, and Snakehead has the same basic plot line - some guys want to blow up the world and Alex Rider stops them.
Kill Clock by Alan Guthrine (Barrington Stoke 5.99). Pearce has been arrested a number of times and his girlfriend, Julie, deserted him, taking a very expensive ring with her. Now she is back in his life and pleading for help. Banksy, a villain who lent money to her deceased boyfriend, wanted the money back but offered her another option. Julie had to kill someone in a time limit of 24 hours. But she didn't. And now Banksy is looking for her. She doesn't have 20 grand, and neither does Pearce. This book isn't really for small people. It has loads of swearing, but I liked it. The storyline is good, but at 130 pages the book could have been a bit longer.
Dead Brigade by James Lovegrove (Barrington Stoke 5.99). Sergeant Dex Hammond, traumatised after an incident where some Osama bin Laden types shot at his unit, still has nightmares of his friends dying around him. Six year later, the only other survivor of the attack visits him, introduces him to some reanimated dead people, and asks him to train them to...