Review: Agent 21 by Chris Ryan

Some authors just write about it. Chris Ryan has been there, done it, and lived to tell the tale. Agent 21 is the first in a brand-new action-packed adventure series by the real-life SAS hero.

When Zak Darke's parents die in an unexplained mass murder he's left alone in the world. That is until he's sought out by a mysterious man: 'I work for a government agency,' the man tells him. 'You don't need to know which one. Not yet. All you need to know is that we've had our eye on you. There's a possibility you could help us in certain . . . operational situations.'

Zak becomes Agent 21. What happened to the 20 agents before him he'll never know. What he does know is that his life is about to change for ever . . .

There are a lot of teen spy books around at the moment, and I have to say I love this genre.  So I was
pretty excited to read this book, as I had not heard of it before.

The book gripped me immediatly with a mysterious prologue - after that, to start with it reminded me of other popular spy books, Alex Rider and CHERUB, but after the first 'do you want to be a spy?' part it was more original.  It was believeable - there weren't any unrealistic gadgets and the main character, Zak, recieved plenty of training before going on a mission, while in other books the character suddenly knows exactly what to do without any help!

It was full of action and excitement, however this did not make the book confusing at all!  The action fitted well with the story and also seemed realistic.

I liked the characters.  They were all sensible and they didn't miss hugely obvious things - sometimes I feel like shouting at character when they miss obvious things! xD We don't find out a lot about any of them, and I think it would've been nice to at least have found out a bit more about Zak, the main character, so we can get to know him better.

The ending was good - it wrapped up the book well, but still left it open for a sequel (which I will definately be reading!).

This was generally a great book, my only complaints being that it sometimes lacked original ideas and we don't get to know the characters that well.  (For some reason I thought this book was about a secret agent who was 21 years old - I have no idea why.... :S)

Rating: 4/5