Anthony Horowitz · 2009 · thriller

Anthony Horowitz's 2009 thriller. A New Year's accident on a frozen Scottish loch draws teenage spy Alex Rider into the orbit of Desmond McCain, a charity boss with a monstrous scheme. Behind his good works lies a plot to unleash a genetically engineered blight and reap a fortune from the famine that follows. The trail runs from Scotland to London to the highlands of Kenya.

1. 1
   Scotland

   Spending New Year in the Scottish Highlands, Alex Rider survives a car plunging through the ice of a frozen loch - and crosses paths with Desmond McCain, a charismatic charity boss whose smile hides something cold and murderous.

2. 2
   London

   Back in London, drawn in through a journalist's tip, Alex begins to unravel McCain's charity, First Aid - a front concealing a scheme to trigger a man-made catastrophe and profit from the disaster relief that follows.

3. 3
   Kenya

   The hunt ends in the highlands of Kenya, at a dam above a valley where McCain means to unleash a genetically engineered crop blight and starve a nation - and where Alex, alone and hunted, must stop him before the flood is loosed.