Point Blanc

Name: Point Blanc
Author: Anthony Horowitz
ISBN: 9780439420846

by Anthony Horowitz

Ages 11–13 Reading age 11 Novel Set in school adventurouswry

Alex is sent undercover to an Alpine academy for difficult rich boys, where the pupils come back changed and nobody can say why.

A story about children and a grown-up villain, adventurous and wry in tone. We would put it with children of 11–13, and at a reading age of about 11 for reading alone.

Worth knowing before you buy

Frightening scenes
A character dies

None of this makes it a bad book — often the opposite. It is here so you can decide whether it is right for your child now or in a year or two.

Part of a series

This is book 2 of the Alex Rider series, so there is more to read if it goes down well — which is worth a great deal with a reluctant reader.

Our take on this book

Fourteen-year-old Alex Rider, reluctant teenage spy, is sent undercover into an exclusive Alpine boarding school for the troublesome sons of the rich and powerful, where the sinister headmaster's plans turn out to be far darker and stranger than mere discipline. Anthony Horowitz writes the Alex Rider books as full-throttle teen thrillers — gadgets, chases, stunts and a genuinely nasty villain — and this second outing is one of the most gripping, building to a spectacular escape that readers remember for years. The peril is real and the action is intense, more Bond than schoolyard, so it suits an older or more confident reader ready for a proper thriller with actual danger. For an eleven- to thirteen-year-old — and especially a boy who claims not to like reading — the Alex Rider series is one of the most dependable hooks there is: cinematic, fast and genuinely exciting, and this instalment keeps them tearing through to the next.