SuitabookCrocodile Tears
Anthony Horowitz
- Reading
- If your reader is new to the series, discuss the premise and action first, then pause over Alex’s mood and the ethics of exploiting charitable goodwill. The ending and wider consequences remain unclear.
- Themes
- Public trust and exploitation: A charity broker allegedly uses public donations in a scheme designed to generate further charitable money while enriching one person. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
- The burdens of exceptional responsibility: Alex is a teenage spy who wishes he could live as a regular schoolboy, and he is described as darker and more reflective in this instalment. The book appears to place excitement beside the personal cost of repeated danger, without enough information to establish whether spy work is ultimately affirmed or questioned.
- Science used as a threat: The plot involves genetically modified corn linked to an airborne virus and a threat on a national scale, with Alex positioned against it. Scientific ideas function as thriller mechanisms in the premise, but the book’s broader attitude towards genetic modification or scientific research cannot be determined.
- Worth knowing
- Be ready for sustained action involving gunfire, explosions, hand-to-hand combat and mercenaries, alongside threats connected with an airborne virus. The extent and detail of these scenes are not clear.