Orphaned when he was an infant, fourteen year old Alex Rider has since lived in the London home of his uncle, Ian Rider, a security specialist with a bank. As Ian is often away on business, a fact that bothers Alex since he loves his uncle and wishes he could spend more time with him, Alex has been largely brought up by his housekeeper of nine years, an American expatriate named Jack. After Ian is killed in a car accident, Alex eventually learns that his uncle was not the mild mannered white collar worker he purported to be, but rather an agent in a special ops division of MI6, and that Ian had actually been grooming Alex to follow in his footsteps by providing him with special skills, such as scuba diving, self defense/martial arts, and language training. Ian's handlers, Alan Blunt and Mrs. Jones, co-opt Alex to take over the case on which Ian was working and for which he was killed, namely following the exploits of an American businessman named Darrius Sayle, who wants to provide his new state-of-the-art computer system, Stormbreaker, to every British child. If Alex is able to uncover Darrius' plot, he will find that the lives of millions of Britons are in danger, and that if killed will be done at the hands of Darrius' old friend, the British Prime Minister. Through it all, there is another battle brewing between Blunt/Mrs. Jones and Jack, the latter who will do whatever needed to protect the life of her charge, who she loves like a son.—Huggo