An old woman walked into a funeral house to arrange for her own funeral. She died a few hours later, in her home. She was killed and the mystery started this way.

A detective who was fired from the homicide team Hawthorne, was working as a consultant for the case.

Anthony Horowitz written himself into the book and act as Watson to Sherlock. This Hawthorne was a loner and a strange man. He is not nice or friendly, but could take up clues like no other. Anthony agreed to write his book if he could solve this murder.

The old lady, had killed a boy in a car accident almost 10 years back. Is this revenge? Or is it something else? She had a son who is a famous actor. Is it because of the son?

Goes a bit back and forth. I would give it a 4.5 stars.

All good and well.

Jack is alive. Alex thought she died in the last book but now we found out she survived and they got a long weekend together. Alex is going back to school and be a regular boy again. 

So that is what we thought that is good for him.

Mrs Jones is not a good person. She is now having problem with the struggling for power. Plus there was a murder of an operative by two teenage assassins. 

Oh no. They are not serious in trying to get Alex involved in such dangerous task again. But of course Mrs Jones is desperate. The intelligent gathered on the two assassins given her much stress as one of them is her daughter. 

Now Alex was being sent to jail with the teenage assassin, pretended to be Julius. 

What he found out is weird. The assassin was recruited into a religious cult that has very distorted view on life. They were all stolen children isolated from the rest of the world, feeding lies since childhood. This is very similar to be brought up Catholic or Baptist, or Muslim. As they have no other way to understand the world, whatever being fed to them was regarded as truth. 

Of course, Alex has a breakthrough with the help of a small toy that the young assassin Freddy own when he was five. He no longer has a name and was given a number. Very much like Hitman 47. 

Alex need to discover their mission and stop them on execute the terrorist attack in London. 

Alex when to the south of France with Sabrina and met Yassen. Alex knew nothing good when he was there and followed him.

In the process, he met the rich pop singer Damian Cray, en ego maniac who is actually a psychopath. 

Alex when to the opening of a new game and played it. He has met Cray and found his creepy and have such an ego that he would cheat to get his way. 

He couldn't leave it alone so he went to the MI6. No one believed him. Alex shared his identity with Sabrina and MI6 betrayed him by making him out to be a liar. 

So he has to go at this alone. Jack believed him and they both go to find out what Cray evil plan. 

In the meantime, Sabrina's father, a journalist was hurt by a terrorist attack. It was Cray. Sabrina's father was working on a story linking it to Cray and got hurt. 

So Alex went into the compound to see for himself. He passed the gate, he also got some evidence that might spoil Cray plan. 

A fast read with Alex Rider doing a lot of spying stuff. He was on his bike that was given to him with gadgets. Quite a lot of action and running around. The bad guy is obviously the bad guy. 

The only surprise is how reluctant Yassen is unwilling to hurt Alex. 

Sabrina is quite nice as an addition to the story. Only Jack knew about what Alex do and now Sabrina got involved, Alex is not so alone. 

Fast read. Highly recommended. 

This murder mystery novel containing another full murder mystery novel within it does justice to the classic Agatha Christie tradition to which it pays homage. It starts with an editor reading the manuscript of a novel, Magpie Murders, starring Poirot-inspired detective Atticus Pünd. This book-within-a-book annoyingly cuts off just before Pünd reveals the murderer. It then switches to another mystery concerning the sudden death of the writer of Magpie Murders, before the two story lines converge at the end.

Both of the audio narrators do a good job, although the male narrator's gravelly voice is actually not one I would prefer to listen to for hours on end. It was a bit of a challenge for me to remember all the suspects in not one but two mysteries without having the written word to refer back to, but I somehow managed to do it. Whether I was able to guess the murderers is a whole other question. (I wasn't, but that's the fun of mysteries.) Overall it's a clever and entertaining work of metafiction with interesting discussions on whodunits and why they are so appealing to their fans.

This is the second read. The first time is audio book which is not a format that I usually like. 

Now I read it again. And it is even better than as I have more details on to how he got into trouble. 

Alex met a rich guy who was a criminal and then covert into Christianity to fool people that he has changed. Now he run a charity that supposed to do good but of course there is a twist. 

Plot twist is guarantee for Alex Rider. And action is also part of the fun.

Fun read.