Why did Alex Rider die at the end of Scorpia?
Well, as most people know by now, Alex wasn’t killed. He was just badly hurt and he’ll be back in 2005 in ARK ANGEL. It was never my intention to kill him but it did seem to me that an organisation as evil as Scorpia wouldn’t let him just walk away after he’d destroyed their operation. Suddenly I knew – I didn’t even plan it – that a sniper would take a shot at him as he left MI6. But there are quite a few clues in the book that tell you he’s not dead. First of all, the sniper uses a less deadly, low velocity weapon. I never say that Alex stops breathing. And then there’s the question of Mrs Jones’s children (see page 243). There’s a story here that I may resolve one day in a future Alex book.
