Point Blank is a young adult novel by Anthony Horowitz. It is the second book in the Alex Rider series, and centers around a teenager who goes undercover at a prep school to investigate suspicious murders. It was first published in 2001 by Penguin. The book won the 2004 Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Book Award for Grade 6-9. Horowitz, OBE, is an international bestselling author who writes for both children and adults. In 2011, he received official endorsement from the Arthur Conan Doyle estate to write a Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk. The protagonist is a boy called Alex Rider. He’s 14 years old, and he’s an orphan. His uncle, who raised him, died in a car crash before the series begins. Alex discovered that his uncle worked for MI6, which is an elite British spy organization. Now, Alex works for MI6 in his uncle’s place whenever they need his help. He’s struggling to keep his unusual job secret from his friends, and he’s not sure he wants to help them forever. However, MI6 shortly needs Alex’s help once again. An assassin, known as The Gentleman, murders a well-known American electronics billionaire in an elevator shaft. Shortly afterwards, another billionaire dies in suspicious circumstances, and MI6 believe the murders are linked. The only evidence of a link, though, is that they both have sons attending a special school in the French Alps. This school, run by a South African scientist, Dr Grief, rehabilitates “problem” children of the rich and famous. Alex doesn’t want to go there, but he feels he owes it to his uncle to continue his work. Besides, he’s scared of MI6 and doesn’t feel like he can say no to them. MI6 assigns him a family to shadow for a week so that he learns how to fit in with billionaires. He’s going undercover as the son of a supermarket mogul called David Friend, and he needs to know his cover story inside-out. Once the week’s over, MI6 has Alex escorted to the school known as Point Blank. He must tell Dr Grief and other teachers about his supposedly bad behavior and why he’s at the school in the first place. MI6 doesn’t want the teachers knowing about his cover in case they’re implicated in the murders. Meanwhile, Alex must also make friends so that he can learn more about the boys and what’s going on at the school. The point is to identify any reason why fathers of these schoolboys are targeted. There’s a problem, however. No one’s comfortable talking. The only boy Alex befriends is called James. He’s convinced there’s something odd about the school, because all the boys go from being rebellious to saintly almost overnight. This intrigues Alex, and he knows that MI6 is onto something after all. However, instead of helping Alex investigate, James decides he wants to escape and flee the country. He doesn’t want to stay at the school anymore, because he doesn’t want to become like the other boys. Alex must figure out a way to get the information he needs before James gets suspicious of him. Meanwhile, Alex sees someone punishing James, but he can’t do anything about it. When he next speaks to James, he discovers that he doesn’t want to escape anymore, and he’s really enjoying his time at the school. Alex finds this very strange—it’s like James has been brainwashed. He covertly contacts MI6 and tells them of his concerns. MI6, however, needs more than this to act. They tell him to keep his distance from James but see what else he can find out. They’ll move in as soon as he gets more concrete information. The next day, Alex discovers that the James he’s seeing now is not the real James but is a clone. The real James, who Alex originally met, is locked up in a basement prison. Alex reveals the truth about who he is and together he and other boys hatch a plan. However, Dr Grief catches them and takes them prisoner first. Alex learns that Dr Grief controls the boys so that he can one day take over the world. He targets billionaires because he expects their sons will end up in positions of power, and this will allow him to achieve global domination. The men who died started questioning their sons’ strange behavior, although it’s not clear if they worked out the truth. Dr Grief had them killed before they could close the school and ruin his plans. Meanwhile, Alex knows he must escape and get word to MI6. At the same time, MI6 is suspicious because they haven’t heard from him again. They decide to take over the school and break his cover. Alex escapes by taking a snowmobile up a ski jump ramp and directs it into Dr Grief’s helicopter, so he can’t leave. Alex, however, finds MI6 raiding the school, and he’s saved. The clones are captured—all but one, who looks like Alex.

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Anthony Horowitz

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