Set just five weeks after the events of ''Scorpia Rising'', Alex Rider is living in San Francisco and attempting to adjust to life as a normal high school student. Normal, however, is not a word that we associate with this particular fifteen year old. After all, this is the boy who's completed nine successful missions for M16: the teenager who has saved the world (more than once) and effectively brought down the international criminal organisation, Scorpia. And things aren't about to change. Given everything that has happened in Alex's young life, it's not surprising that the past is about to catch up with him…