The Gatekeepers #4: Necropolis [Hardcover]

Anthony Horowitz (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up | Series: The Gatekeepers

The stakes get higher in #1 NYT bestselling author Anthony Horowitz's latest masterpiece.

As the fourth novel in the spellbinding Gatekeepers series begins, the world is under the greatest threat it's ever known. The evil corporation Nightrise has amassed an immense amount of power . . . and the devastating force of the Old Ones is about to be unleashed around the globe. To stop this from happening, Matt and three of the Gatekeepers head to Hong Kong--not just the modern city of skyscrapers and wealth, but the secretive underworld beneath. In Hong Kong they will meet the final Gatekeeper, a girl named Scarlet, whose fate is inextricably joined to their own....

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Gatekeepers

"Younger teens who like an exciting adventure mixed with supernatural horror will thrill to Matt's story." — Voice of Youth Advocates

"A must-have for reluctant, middle-grade boys." — School Library Journal

"Horowitz truly knows his way around a plot; he keeps the tension at a nail-biting level throughout." — Kirkus Reviews

"There's no denying Horowitz's talent for creating monstrous evil and pumping up the tension with bloody details, exciting escapes, and cliff-hanging sequences." — Booklist --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

ANTHONY HOROWITZ is a New York Times bestselling author with wildly popular series such as The Gatekeepers and Alex Rider. He lives in England.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Press (April 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0439680034
• ISBN-13: 978-0439680035
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #357,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anthony Horowitz's life might have been copied from the pages of Charles Dickens or the Brothers Grimm. Born in 1956 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a family of wealth and status, Anthony was raised by nannies, surrounded by servants and chauffeurs. His father, a wealthy businessman, was, says Mr. Horowitz, "a fixer for Harold Wilson." What that means exactly is unclear -- "My father was a very secretive man," he says-- so an aura of suspicion and mystery surrounds both the word and the man. As unlikely as it might seem, Anthony's father, threatened with bankruptcy, withdrew all of his money from Swiss bank accounts in Zurich and deposited it in another account under a false name and then promptly died. His mother searched unsuccessfully for years in attempt to find the money, but it was never found. That too shaped Anthony's view of things. Today he says, "I think the only thing to do with money is spend it." His mother, whom he adored, eccentrically gave him a human skull for his 13th birthday. His grandmother, another Dickensian character, was mean-spirited and malevolent, a destructive force in his life. She was, he says, "a truly evil person", his first and worst arch villain. "My sister and I danced on her grave when she died," he now recalls.
A miserably unhappy and overweight child, Anthony had nowhere to turn for solace. "Family meals," he recalls, "had calories running into the thousands&. I was an astoundingly large, round child&." At the age of eight he was sent off to boarding school, a standard practice of the times and class in which he was raised. While being away from home came as an enormous relief, the school itself, Orley Farm, was a grand guignol horror with a headmaster who flogged the boys till they bled. "Once the headmaster told me to stand up in assembly and in front of the whole school said, 'This boy is so stupid he will not be coming to Christmas games tomorrow.' I have never totally recovered." To relieve his misery and that of the other boys, he not unsurprisingly made up tales of astounding revenge and retribution.


Anthony Horowitz is perhaps the busiest writer in England. He has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. He writes in a comfortable shed in his garden for up to ten hours per day. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he has also written episodes of several popular TV crime series, including Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. He has written a television series Foyle's War, which recently aired in the United States, and he has written the libretto of a Broadway musical adapted from Dr. Seuss's book, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. His film script The Gathering has just finished production. And&oh yes&there are more Alex Rider novels in the works. Anthony has also written the Diamond Brothers series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Necropolis leaves you wanting more!, April 25, 2009

By 

Lane AZ ""bookmom"" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gatekeepers #4: Necropolis (Hardcover)

Anthony Horowitz does a great job with the 4th book in the gate keepers series. I have enjoyed all of his books so far. This books leaves you with a cliff hanger and I hope the fifth book comes out soon so I can know what happens to all of the gate keepers. I would recommend this book but make sure you read the first 3 books before this one so you do not spoil the other books.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Plenty of Suspense to Keep the Pages Flipping, May 12, 2009

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gatekeepers #4: Necropolis (Hardcover)

The fifth Gatekeeper, Scarlet, is paying no attention as she crosses a street in Dulwich, trying to get across to her friend Aidan. It's too late when she sees the van bearing down on her, and she's struck. But at the last possible fraction of a second before impact, she's shoved to safety by an unknown man who runs away before she can thank him or identify him.

From that moment on, Scarlet's life is turned upside down. In NECROPOLIS, the fourth installment in Anthony Horowitz's The Gatekeepers series, we finally come to know the fifth and final Gatekeeper. Unfortunately for her, she is being actively pursued by the Old Ones. Even more unfortunate, her father works for the Nightrise Corporation, the shadowy front group of the Old Ones.

Enduring their own trials and tribulations in South America, Matt and the rest of the Gatekeepers realize they must get to Scarlet before the Old Ones do, for all five are needed to win the war being waged. They make their way to England only to miss Scarlet by mere inches as she is whisked away to Hong Kong with her father.

The Nexus, protectors of the Gatekeepers, convene and agree that Matt and the rest must journey to Hong Kong and retrieve Scarlet. As they make their way and encounter deception to thwart their plans, Scarlet is imprisoned beneath the Needle. With the aid of the Triads, Matt and Scarlet prepare to flee the Needle but encounter agents of the Old Ones blocking their path, and the conclusion finds the five dispersed around the world at the precise time they are needed together, for the Old Ones are ready to strike their commanding blow.

NECROPOLIS is easily the best Gatekeepers novel thus far. The introduction of Scarlet Adams, the fifth Gatekeeper, adds a new dimension to the story and really helps to round out the cast. In fact, she doesn't seem out of place, or even new to the story. She simply feels as if she's been there the whole while, lingering in the periphery and awaiting her turn to step out.

Once again, Horowitz brings the characters and the action of NECROPOLIS to life in a style that opens up like a film on the page. The attack on Professor Chambers's home in South America plays out before your very eyes, and his vivid detailing of places and scenes, especially in Hong Kong, make it easy to see the city without becoming too descriptive or overblown.

Horowitz has crafted a story with an incredible pace, one that keeps pages flipping but does not fly so quickly as to outdistance its own suspense. And there is plenty of suspense, literally from the opening paragraph when Scarlet is hit by a van, to the intense closing pages that set up what is destined to be an explosive final book.

--- Reviewed by Stephen Hubbard

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Spectacular Continuation of the Gatekeepers Series, July 1, 2009

By 

VC (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gatekeepers #4: Necropolis (Hardcover)

I love reading Anthony Horowitz's work. If you read enough of his books--which I have done--you start seeing trends in his writing style. For example, he often alludes to real-life brands for products like guns, cars, equipment, clothing, etc. He also tends to utilize characters with high power in society a lot, which was definitely prominent in the Alex Rider Series. You see that in this series numerous times as well. Another example (I find too many I want to share): Often times, Anthony Horowitz will depict his villains as ugly in some manner, probably to accentuate a character's evil vibe.

It's not that these patterns are bad--I gave the book five stars--I just point these out because an author's modus operandi is a significant aspect of his/her skills. In Anthony Horowitz's case, his modus operandi works marvelously for his stories. Necropolis is no exception. The action is exciting and engrossing, but never tiresome or repetitive. It's fast-paced. It's inventive. It's descriptive, which brings me to another point.

Without spoiling anything, Necropolis is a very suitable title for the book. While reading the book, I found myself amazed at how descriptive and imaginative Anthony Horowitz is able to write. Necro, a Greek prefix meaning death, and polis, a Greek suffix meaning city, combine to form a nightmarish scenario in the book. Anthony Horowitz conveys this nightmare. I could imagine myself witnessing his settings firsthand. This book is also slightly more ominous than the previous ones...you can just tell from the cover. Things are eerie, like straight-out-of-F.E.A.R-the-video-game-eerie. But hey, that's what makes it good.

Don't be looking for too many answers if you read this. There's still at least one book more. He also leaves you with a big cliffhanger as well, but it ends satisfyingly enough so that you're not questioning yourself as to what will happen every minute after you finish. Read and enjoy...it took me about half a day to finish.