A traitor. A second demonic gate. Even more deaths. Only two children can stop these crazy events. Matthew Freeman is brought back into the Nexus, a mysterious organization that combat the dark forces of the Old Ones. While living with his current guardian, Richard, a journalist who saved Matthew's life, he is sent to a rich private school. There, he is unable to make friends and it seemed that everyone was against him. However, things seemed to get better when Matt saves the whole school from his ex-foster mother, who was persuaded into driving a petrol tanker into the school. That only made him seem like a freak. The Nexus sends Matt to get a mysterious diary of a mad monk that seemed to have very valuable information on the mysterious gates and the Old Ones. Things take a turn for the worse as someone is murdered, and Matthew is once again put into the line of fire. Sent to Peru on a mission to find and destroy the second gate that led to another world, he meets a boy, one who he has seen in his dreams-Pedro-. Fate has pushed the two of them together as the other three children will also be drawn towards Matt and Pedro. Only able to communicate with each other in their dreams, Matt and Pedro are... very limited on what they can do. They decide to travel to Cuzco, an ancient city bustling with tourists. Diego Salamanda, a businessman from South America who wants to free the Old Ones has been expecting them. After being shot at and almost killed, Matt and Pedro are rescued by the Incas, a lost Native American tribe that wants to help Matthew and Pedro. Sent to the Inca's lost city, they are honored and Pedro finds out something about himself that shocks him and Matthew. There they learn a clue to the whereabouts of the second gate. The Nazca Desert, or The Nazca Lines to be exact. At the desert they meet Professor Chambers, a scientist who devoted her life to the Nazca Lines. They team up to stop the gate from opening. Failure. Anthony Horowitz emphasizes that Matthew is in a foreign country because it shows that he cannot communicate and would be in very serious danger if anything were to happen to him, adding more excitement into the story. Every page is chock full of suspense and excitement and a mood that just keeps the reader wanting to tell their parents, "One more chapter please."
The Power of Five: Evil Star
Scholastic Press/ Walter Books Ltd* New York, New York June 2006 Fantasy/Horror 320 pages *[US/UK]
Quote
"But looking down from the top of the hill, one house stood out immediately. Number twenty-seven no longer belonged there. It was as if it had caught some sort of disease and needed to be taken away. The front garden was full of junk and the garbage can beside the gate was overflowing, surrounded by plastic garbage bags that the owners had not been able to stuff inside... What was unusual was the way the house smelled. For weeks now, there had been a rotten, sewage smell that at first to be coming from a blocked pipe but which had rapidly gotten worse until people begun to cross the street to avoid it." Excerpt from Evil Star Horowitz, Anthony. Page 3
Style of Writing
As the quote clearly shows, Anthony Horowitz seems to enjoy describing tiny things with the utmost descriptive details. As I wondered why he does that, it suddenly hit me. Unlike some authors who overly use irrelevant descriptions, Anthony Horowitz uses descriptions for a reason. He wants to make his readers feel they are actually in the given setting. Take the description of Gwenda's house shown above for example. Horowitz want his readers to be able to see how filthy her house his, what Matthew had to deal with for six whole years. He wants to clearly show what cause Matthew to be so eager to leave her house in the previous book, refreshing our memories of what happened in the last book. Anthony's care into elaborating different places and event aren't just to make his books longer. No. He just wants to help us understand the story better.