Skeleton Key (novel)

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**Title** **Skeleton Key**
Skeleton Key Cover
Author	Anthony Horowitz
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Alex Rider series
Genre(s)	Adventure, Spy novel
Publisher	Walker Books (UK)
Released	8 July 2002
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	320 pp (first edition, paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-7445-9007-8 (first edition, paperback)
Preceded by	Point Blanc
Followed by	Eagle Strike

Skeleton Key is the third Alex Rider novel written by Anthony Horowitz.

The novel sees Alex Rider pursued by a Chinese Triad from the Wimbledon Tennis Championships to Miami to Skeleton Key, an island off Cuba, where he faces General Alexei Sarov, an insane general from Communist Russia who plans to change the world forever. A movie adaption has been mentioned, but no details have been announced.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the third Alex Rider novel, Alex is invited by MI6 to be a ball boy at Wimbledon, to investigate a strange break-in in which nothing was stolen. On the assignment, he meets a ball girl named Sabina Pleasure and becomes good friends with her. She invites Alex on vacation with her family, and also shows romantic interest in him. Despite MI6's confidence, Alex discovers that the Big Circle, a Chinese Triad gang, is rigging the games by drugging the contestants. After an unsuccessful attempt on Alex's life by the Triad, MI6 and the CIA tell him that he should go out on a vacation to Skeleton Key, an island off the coast of Cuba. They promise him two weeks in the sun and say he is only needed so two CIA agents Troy and Turner can successfully enter the country for a simple spying mission.

Soon after they arrive, Alex discovers some frightening truths. After finding a Geiger counter disguised as a Game Boy, he finds out that the CIA agents are looking for a nuclear bomb. An old Russian general living in Skeleton Key, Alexei Sarov, bought some weapons-grade uranium, and the CIA agents attempt to infiltrate his palace. Unfortunately, they are killed, and Alex is taken as a prisoner. Sarov's bodyguard and right hand man, Conrad, is a former terrorist who was badly mauled when a bomb he was carrying went off early. He was badly disfigured, but he lived and works for Sarov. he tortured and attempted to kill Alex, but is stopped by Sarov. Then he finds out that Sarov wants to adopt him, since Alex resembles Sarov's late son, who died during the 1979 Afghanistan war. Shortly after Alex is captured, the Russian president arrives at Sarov's palace for an informal vacation.

Sarov soon reveals his plans: dispose the president, set off the bomb in a nuclear submarine shipyard in Murmansk, spread chaos throughout the world, and reunite the USSR. Alex is taken by plane to the submarine yard with Sarov and his men. On the way there, Alex activates a stun grenade and attempts to escape. However, an arrogant security guard named John Prescott stops him from calling the police. Conrad kills Prescott and they continue to Murmansk.

When Prescott grabbed the phone, he didn't hang it up. Although the police believed Alex's talk was a hoax, they alerted MI6 when they heard Conrad kill Prescott. MI6 subsequently alerted the Russian authorities, and the Russians pull together an army to take the submarine yard and prevent the bomb from going off. While the soldiers are fighting Sarov's men, Alex begins a final showdown with Conrad. Conrad attempts to strangle him, but a magnetized crane attracts the metal pins in Conrad's body, propelling him upwards into the crane and snapping his neck. The crane then becomes de-magnetized, dropping Conrad into the ocean. Alex then throws the keycard away, rendering the nuclear bomb useless. Sarov, who sees Alex throw the card away, approaches him with the pistol. After Alex says he would rather die than be adopted, Sarov shoots himself in front of Alex. Alex is badly shaken up by the incident, and he doesn't get over it very well but at the end of the novel, Sabina invites him on a holiday to France.