Doing a serious review of something like this verges on the ridiculous. This is like a Bond movie for kids -- just for fun. And loads of fun it is. Full of action, suspense, thrill-a-minute adventure, gadgets, and a massively competent kid who saves the world through brains, guts, and martial arts, it keeps young readers enthralled. For what it means to be it is very well done, and is especially good for reluctant readers.

Don't look here for literary value, clever dialogue, character development, logic, or sense. Don't bother with suspending disbelief: you have to stick it in a bag filled with concrete and sink it in the nearest river (or perhaps put it in a tank with a giant poisonous jellyfish, as is done to Alex at one point). But the target audience won't have any trouble suspending disbelief -- they'll eat up every second and beg for more. So it's a good thing it's just the first book in a series.

From the Book:
His short flight across the junkyard ended with a bone-shattering crash as the crane deposited the car on the iron shelves of the crusher. Alex tried to fight back his sickness and despair and think of what to do. Any moment now the operator would send the car tipping into the coffin-shaped trough. The machine was a Lefort Shear, a slow-motion guillotine. At the press of a button, the two wings would close on the car with a joint pressure of five hundred tons. The car, with Alex inside it, would be crushed beyond recognition. And the broken metal -- and flesh -- would then be chopped into sections. Nobody would ever know what had happened.

He tried with all his strength to free himself. But the roof was too low. His leg was trapped. Then his whole world tilted and he felt himself falling into darkness.