The Alex Rider books are irresistibly moreish … As always, the form is satisfyingly ingenious and twisty, with a series of impossible scenarios from which Alex has to escape by the inventive use of machinery, gadgets and everyday objects. This story — and they just get cleverer — makes use of virtual reality, plays with the hero and the reader about who is to be trusted, and has a perilous Hunger Games-like finale. It will be voraciously consumed.

The Invisible Bullet The three-headed dog was sitting on the corner of Times Square in the middle of New York.   As he climbed out of the subway and caught his breath, Steven Chan got the sense that the dog was searching for him. It would have the advantage, of course. With its twisting necks and its six smouldering red eyes, it could look in three directions at once. Had it actually seen him? The dog was built like a Dobermann but it was several times larger, looming over the traffic that was snarled up in the surrounding streets, the swarms of yellow cabs all blaring their horns as if that would actually help them find a way through the tangled knot of cars, delivery vans and open-top tourist buses.   It was a bitterly cold February evening. Although it was only five o’clock, the sky was already slate grey. The neon advertisements all around the square seemed to be fighting with each other: NBC, Pepsi, Levi’s, The Lion King, The Phantom of the Opera. Clouds of steam and smoke were rising into the air, spilling out of the various braziers cooking hot dogs, burgers and candied nuts, or billowing through the manholes, escaping from the miles of service pipes below the pavements.   Steven Chan tightened the hood of his silver-grey puffer jacket and hurried along Seventh Avenue, trying to lose himself in the crowd. He was in his twenties, Asian American, with a round face, black hair and haunted eyes. He was in danger and he knew it. Had he really allowed himself to fly almost three thousand miles, from West Coast to East Coast, simply to walk into a trap? For that was what New York had become. The whole city. And he was already wondering how he was going to get out alive.   He should have known better.   Chan wasn’t exactly a private detective. His friends would have laughed if he’d called himself that. But he was most certainly an investigator, working in the closely related fields of computer fraud, identity theft and industrial espionage. His job had often brought him up against people who were as wealthy and powerful as they were dangerous, and he knew how to look after himself. After all, he had worked for three years as a field agent with the CIA. Trained in the use of firearms, he had a licence to carry the SIG Sauer P226 pistol, which was his weapon of choice. Right now he wished he had brought it with him. He would have liked to have felt the weight of it, tucked into his waistband. But it was too late now. He had to find a way out. He had to get home.   He glanced back. The dog was still there. One of its three mouths was hanging open, revealing a drooling tongue and impossibly sharp teeth. The crowds of pedestrians were passing by on either side. Nobody else seemed to have noticed it.   As he urged himself on, Steven Chan thought back to the moment, two hours ago, when his nightmare had begun.   He had come to New York to meet the one man who could help him with his investigation and tell him everything he needed to know. He had managed to piece it all together for himself, but the truth was so shocking, so unbelievable, that he needed proof. That was what Paul Shaffer had promised to give him.   The two men couldn’t have been more careful. They had only ever spoken using “burners”: cheap cell phones that they used once and then destroyed. They had sent disposable emails that self-destructed the moment they were read. And Shaffer had been clear about the arrangements for the meeting.  Come alone.  Tell no one.  Don’t be late.   Chan had obeyed all three instructions. His plane had landed exactly on time at LaGuardia Airport and he had taken a taxi straight to SoHo, a smart area much loved by writers and artists at the southern end of Manhattan. This was where Shaffer lived. The taxi had pulled up in front of a tall, red-brick structure in Mercer Street, a warehouse that had been converted into a handful of spacious apartments. As he paid the driver and got out, Chan had wondered how much it would cost to buy a place like this. Five million dollars? Ten?   Shaffer would easily have been able to afford it. He was one of the most famous video game designers in America, the man behind Zombie Nights 1, 2 and 3. He had joined Real Time, one of the biggest tech companies in America, and had helped them create the shooter Trigger Happy, which had sold half a million copies in the week following its launch. Most recently, he had been the guiding force behind the creation of Eden Fall, the augmented reality game that had taken the world by storm. Many people were saying that it was going to be as big as Pokémon GO. Real Time boasted that it already was.   Chan had walked up to the door and rung the bell. Nobody had answered. Should that have warned him that something was wrong? Would it have made any difference if he had turned round and left, there and then?   But this is what had happened. As he stood at the entrance, wondering what to do, the door had opened and one of the other residents had come out: a woman in a fake fur coat with a large handbag. Chan had smiled at her as if he had just been buzzed in and walked past her before she had a chance to question him. He found himself in a gloomy hallway with a lift on one side, but he had been trained to avoid lifts whenever possible. To any field agent, a lift was a small room with just one metal door and no other way out. He took the stairs.   Paul Shaffer owned the penthouse, six storeys up. When Chan reached the top of the stairs, he saw that the door was ajar, and that should have been another warning, but it was too late to go back now. He knocked and waited. Then, with a rising sense of dread, he pushed the door open and went in.   He continued along a wide corridor with a polished wooden floor and brightly coloured Marvel posters – originals – on the walls. One door opened into a kitchen, old-fashioned but full of modern gadgets; the next led into a bathroom. Chan didn’t call out. He moved carefully, making no sound. The instinct that he had developed as a CIA agent told him that he was alone in the apartment, but he couldn’t be sure. Once again, he thought of the SIG Sauer P226 that he had left behind. He missed the cold comfort of the metal in his hands. As he entered the living room, he felt completely naked.   The living room was huge, with double-height ceilings and four oversized windows with views stretching out over West Broadway. The day was already nearing its end, but Chan didn’t reach for the light switch. There might be someone watching the flat. Why advertise that he was here? His eyes took in expensive furniture, a jukebox, shelves jammed with photographs and awards, a long metal table surrounded by chairs, a Persian rug. No sign of any computer equipment. Shaffer must work somewhere else. A spiral staircase led to a gallery with more doors at the back. Chan climbed up.   The man he had come to meet was in the bedroom. Paul Shaffer was lying on his back, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, his bare feet sticking out. He was staring at the ceiling with eyes that no longer saw anything. It was impossible to say how the games designer had died. It could have been natural causes: a heart attack or a stroke. But Chan knew otherwise. The meeting had been planned very carefully. The stakes could not have been higher. It was too much of a coincidence that Shaffer should have chosen this moment to pass away in his sleep. He had been murdered, and Chan realized that he had to get out of this place as quickly as he could if he didn’t want to be next.