Notes

New Year's Eve in Scotland and for once Alex Rider is enjoying a normal life. But then he meets Desmond McCain, the dynamic chief of an international charity, First Aid, and what starts as a simple card game rapidly becomes a duel to the death. Suddenly Alex is in more danger than ever before and his life is threatened without his even knowing why. Things get worse when he is confronted by a journalist who threatens to publish the truth about his life as a teenage spy. Forced to ask MI6 for protection, Alex finds himself being manipulated in a deadly game that could lead to the destruction of an entire East African country.