Imagine a 14-year-old British boy, orphaned soon after birth, and raised by an uncle who travels the world.

Imagine this boy being tapped by MI6 to be a spy for Her Majesty’s government.

Think James Bond for the Harry Potter set and you got Alex Rider, the her of a series of novels by Anthony Horowitz that top the reading list for my seventh-grade stepson and his friends.

There have been six Alex Rider novels so far:

Stormbreaker
Point Blanc
Skeleton Key
Eagle Strike
Scorpia
Ark Angel

A seventh is set to be published in November, which is a long way to wait for younger readers. An eighth book is also said to be likely.

The seventh-grade critic I know says these books are interesting and are better than Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot and Flush.