THE POWER OF FIVE: NECROPOLIS (POWER OF FIVE) [Hardcover]

ANTHONY HOROWITZ (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: WALKER; First Edition/First Printing edition (2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844286223
• ISBN-13: 978-1844286225
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #986,833 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

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, April 23, 2010

By 

M. W. Lamar (North Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: THE POWER OF FIVE: NECROPOLIS (POWER OF FIVE) (Hardcover)

This book is a great book. And I think that buying it from the UK was a great choice, at least it was for me. The book has high quality paper, and the dust jacket. And if you are looking at this book it probably means you've read the books before this one in the series so I think that you'll enjoy this book just as much as the other ones.

5.0 out of 5 stars its GREAT, February 27, 2011

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Power of Five: Necropolis (Kindle Edition)

I had this book at home but i lost it so i buyed it here.Aniway the storyline and action rivals alex rider ad i cant wait for more i have folowed this series through and this is the best book jet.