Snakehead is the seventh book in the Alex Rider series written by Anthony Horowitz. It stars Alexander “Alex” Rider, who is a teenaged MI6 agent.
Alex Rider lands in the South Pacific after blowing up the Ark Angel in outer space. After his recovery, he is sent to a military base in Swanbourne, Australia, and spends some time with a few of the soldiers there. One day before his departure, he goes to a barbecue with them but finds himself on a minefield by accident, only narrowly escaping being killed by leaping off an armed landmine. Alex is puzzled by the incident.
Meanwhile, the criminal organization SCORPIA, as part of their mission to assassinate eight celebrities due to host a conference to rival the G8 summit on Reef Island, an island off the north-west coast of Australia, breaks into a Ministry of Defense weapons research centre and steals a prototype bomb code-named “Royal Blue”, known to be more powerful and devastating than the daisy cutter.
In Australia, Ethan Brooke, head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), coerces Alex into helping him by pairing him with agent Ash, who was his godfather and once his father’s best friend, to investigate the powerful Snakehead Ring under Winston Yu, after two failed attempts to infiltrate the organization. Alex then travels to Bangkok, Thailand where he meets Ash. He explains that he and Alex will take on the identities of Afghan refugees who have paid the Snakehead to smuggle them into Australia. Throughout their journey they are to identify key members of the Snakehead and find out their operations.
