Sure, drug addiction is bad but so is nuclear fallout, Cray. I remembered what happens about three sentences before it did, and all my notes say is “FUCKING HARDCORE”. There’s a point where he kills one of his ex-henchman (not really a spoiler, it’s par for the course in an Alex Rider story) and the way that he kills them is so goddamn cool-gross. Absolutely bonkers and awful, but cool as shit. Hopefully he’s a bastardised version of that person, though, else we need to keep a closer eye on our millionaire musicians. But he’s definitely, definitely someone, take my word for it. I am absolutely convinced that Damian Cray is supposed to resemble someone, but I don’t know enough about music to be able to tell you who he is.
![eagle strike eagle strike](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/liQAAOSwgWJh9A1d/s-l500.jpg)
It also shows his increasing independence and mistrust in authority figures around him. The pre-adventure also helped us see how Alex is developing as a spy. Did nobody sense check these scenes, or is my crush on Yassen seriously throwing me off here? Anyway. It reads like a YA insta-love scene every time, not a teenager and his middle-aged ‘nemesis’. I know that it’s his shock at seeing his nemesis, but every time he acts as though the world stops when he sees Yassen, I laugh. I’ll admit I laughed my ass off at Alex’s reaction to Yassen. It’s very much tied into the plot of the story itself, especially seeing as we’re all of three seconds in when we get our first glimpse of my man. The pre-adventure in Eagle Strike is less disconnected than they usually are. How does he get up in the morning, it takes me 6 to 8 weeks to get over a mild inconvenience. Can someone (Anthony Horowitz, I’m looking at you) please give this boy a break. That means it’s been a couple of weeks at absolute most (maybe less considering that it was Wimbledon-Miami-Cuba-Scotland-Russia) since Alex watched Sarov shoot himself in close quarters. I read that twice, to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding it. It’s been ONE month since Wimbledon, as of the start of this book. Right away this book made me sad for Alex for the thousandth time. Before, Alex has always had MI6 behind him but this time its just him vs the most popular man in the world. Only Alex seems to realise that maybe it’s Sir Cray that the world needs saving from and under his charitable mask lays a monster.
![eagle strike eagle strike](https://lovski-oglasnik.si/wp-content/uploads/classified-listing/2020/12/ar-bdc3_moa.jpg)
He only needs a little more to save the world from itself. Sir Damian Cray is a pop-star, a philanthropist and a peace-maker. Let’s see what trouble he gets into this time.
![eagle strike eagle strike](https://www.rkbarmory.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Vortex-Strike-Eagle-5-25x56-1a.jpg)
There wasn’t a huge amount of carry-over info at the end of Skeleton Key, apart from that the CIA are now very aware of Alex’s existence and word might be getting out to other intelligence agencies. Jones thinks they should leave him the hell alone. Alex is getting pretty scarred and traumatised now, and Mrs. Alex has just seen a murdering general shoot himself a few feet away from him, after thwarting his plans and rejecting his weird adoption overtures. At least this one only lasted a couple of pages. This was Alex fake-out number two, and I will be keeping score. So at the end of Skeleton Key, we had another Alex-is-dead fake-out after the nuclear fiasco in Murmansk and Sarov’s shot’s fired moment. Rating: 4 stars! Alex Rider series so far: I’m not even discussing that in this review, because spoilers, but I’m putting it out there that I’m sad. I actually opened and closed this three times on the train because as soon as I read the intro chapter I remembered what was going to happen.