Alex Rider is the protagonist of the story, a fourteen-year-old boy who has the distinction of being one of the most effective covert operatives in existence. He attained this status through the training that his uncle, Ian Rider, had given him during his childhood. Alex's father was also a spy, and although his mother worked as a nurse, there is some suspicion that she might have been a covert operative, too. Both died in an explosion that Ash had planted on a plane destined for France, where his parents planned to raise Alex as a normal boy. Their deaths changed everything for him.
