Crocodile Tears By Anthony Horowitz (8th Alex Rider Novel)

• This book starts as Alex Rider (a teenage spy) not wanting to join MI6 (a secret intelligence service) again after his Snakehead experience (in the 7th novel) and he just wants to lead a normal life. When he goes to Scotland with his friend to spend the New Year at a party in a castle overlooking Loch Akraig and Alex wanders into a casino in the castle and gets involved, things start to get serious.
• Desmond McCain (host of the party and says that all the money raised in the party will go to a charity, First Aid) is one of the other players as well as a man who Alex thinks looks like an accountant. But when Alex wins a whole load of events happens in quick succession to make him get involved with MI6 again and has to carry out a mission whilst on a Geography field trip.

This book was relatively easy to read and there weren't that many words in the story that I didn't know the meaning of. The main characters are described very well in their appearance especially Desmand McCain. The settings were very realistic and described very successfully especially around Loch Akraig and all the senses were used well. The main themes in this book are adventure and escape because Alex is very adventurous in the missions he takes on however there are escape scenes once he has undertaken the the missions to get out successfully.

Overall I would give this book 9/10 because although the book is very good some of the scenes start to be predictable.

Mortal Coil - Skulduggery Pleasant (5) By Derek Landy

• This book starts off with a killer assasain, Tesseract, getting hired by possibly one of Davina Marr's patners in destroying the Sanctuary (book 4). Personally I think this because these people do not want to let the rest of the world know that they were in the plan for it.
• This assasain will try anything to kill Davina Marr and about halfway through the book he has been given Skulduggery Pleasant's home address and when he goes to Skulduggery's house he stroke luck, Davina Marr was in the house being interviewed by Skulduggery, Valkyrie, Tanith Low and Erskine Ravel.
• This was a bonus for Tesseract but he could not only kill Davina Marr but he could also kill the rest of them too.
• When Solomon Wreath wanted to know if Valkyrie was the Death Bringer or not he persuaded a future teller to look into the future. He did this by using a remnant.A remnant is a creature which lives and goes around the world by living in other humans and they feed on human flesh. When it saw something in the future it had no hesitation in running around the streets. Once it took hold of Anton Shudder's body (the owner of the Midnight Hotel where all the remnants are) it released them and lots of chaos soon broke out.

Overall I really enjoyed the book as whole and the structure was very good. I think this because every time the story got really exciting the author moved on to a different setting in the book to make the reader want to carry on. The language was also quite simple and it was very easy to understand what was going on. For me, Tesseract is a very well developed character in the book as the metal mask on one side of his face allows the reader to imagine what it really is like. There are 2 main big ideas in the book. Firstly it is about Tesseract finding Davina Marr and killing her and secondly is about the remnants finding their leader. The main setting is in Ireland however there are many different settings in Ireland. My favourite setting is in the Hibernian cinema where Kenspeckle Grouse works as it is described very well. 

My overall mark for this book is a 10/10 because all the way through the book I can picture the scenes going on in my head.

Dark Days - Skulduggery Pleasant (4) By Derek Landy

• This book starts off with the main character Skulduggery Pleasant caught in a parallel world with his partner-Valkyrie Cain still on Earth. In order for Valkyrie to save Skulduggery she has to use an Isthmus Anchor to get Skulduggery out of the parallel world. Valkyrie has found out by a Necromancer (a discipline of magic as well as Elemental and Adept) that this Isthmus Anchor Skulduggery's first head.
• However it is not as eay as it sounds because many people in the magic world do not want Skulduggery back into the world so it is not an as easy task as it sounds for Valkyrie.
• Eventually though Valkyrie does get Skulduggery out of the parallel world.

• For the rest of the book a group of people start to get together. These people are grouped together though because they have something in common-they all want to kill Valkyrie Cain. This is, for some people, because they didn't like the fact that Skulduggery was brought back in to the normal world but for some it is purly because Valkyrie has done something to them e.g. injured/scarred them that they want her killed for.

This book was quite easy to read and had short chapters so you can put the book up and down whan you feel like it and can still remember the story. The characters had quite exotic names and were relatively unrealistic to our world, but suited the story as it was to do with magic. My favourite character is Skulduggery because whan he comes back from the parallel world to find out that hiis detective spot in the Sanctuary has been taken away so both him and Davina Marr throughout the book think they are the best at being a detective. The main idea of the book and series is the fact that magic does exist but the people in the outside world do not realise it. Only those who are inside the magic community know that magic does exist. However, apart from the fact that Skulduggery starts off the book in a parallel world the settings in the book are pretty ordinary.

Overall I would give this book a 10/10  because I can't think of any reasons to fault the book.