During school, someone takes a shot at Alex, misses, but hits Tom and puts him in the hospital. Since it seems that Alex is in danger, when a mission to Egypt arises, it is decided that Alex would be a good fit to enter a school that seems to be in jeopardy, minimizing the possible peril for Alex. However, the school is a manipulation by Razim, a new member of Scorpia, to cause Alex to be sent by MI6 to Egypt. When Alex arrives, he discovers a plot to kill the United States Secretary of State is part of a revenge scheme to get back at Alex for all the trouble he has caused Scorpia. Alex finds he is in for more than he bargained for.

Scorpia Rising was initially meant to be the end of the Alex Rider series. We see the toll taken by the many missions that Alex has been assigned, and in the process, Alex loses someone he can't afford to live without. It is difficult to believe that one year in the life of an adolescent could be any more devastating than the one Alex has lived through. This book is the most brutal and heart wrenching in the series so far and makes it tough to want to continue reading the rest of the stories. Overall, Scorpia Rising is a hard sell as a middle grade book, but would have been a fitting end to the series.
3 1/2 stars ( )

The conclusion of the Alex Rider series. Scorpia, reeling from two devastating failures caused by Alex, is hired by a dying Greek multibillionaire to have the Elgin marbles (of British Museum fame) returned to their rightful country. MI-6 is manipulated into sending Alex and Jack Starbright to Egypt to infiltrate an international school, where it believes a kidnapping or hostage situation is imminent. Meanwhile, Alex is being set-up to take the blame of the assasination of the U.S. Secretary of State by his lookalike Julius Grief, who is sprung from a maximum security prison. Fast times, and one very surprising development along the way. ( )

Final book in the Alex Rider oeuvre: his story, and boyhood, come to conclusions. Same enjoyable formula as before: dramatic, nay cinematic settings, no digression, adventure and thrills, striking locations. Without the philandering and the self-ironising, but otherwise like James Bond; indeed the author acknowledges this series as an Ian Fleming homage. And just as with Bond, the well-resourced foes, calm but brittle, more painstaking than impulsive, eventually over play their hands. ( )

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