List of characters in the Alex Rider series

This is a list of protagonists and antagonists from British author Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series. This includes characters from the novels, the film, the graphic novels, and the short stories.

Anthony Sean Howell, more commonly referred to as Ash (his initials), is a major character in Snakehead.

Ash was born in England and worked for MI6 with his best friend John Rider. When John went undercover within Scorpia, Ash was assigned to monitor his progress from a distance in case his friend got into difficulty. Ash was chosen to lead the mission to "capture" John, when he and Yassen Gregorovich were sent to kill a target in Malta. However, the mission was a near total disaster; due to confusion with two clocks that were out of sync, John and Yassen's arrival took Ash by surprise. When Yassen shot Ash, his body armour meant that he was back on his feet in seconds, but this prompted Yassen to fatally shoot four other agents under Ash's command. Ash furiously pursued Yassen, but was left for dead when he was stabbed by the Russian. Ash only survived this injury when John Rider risked his life to provide emergency first aid. Ash was left with half his stomach gone, and was demoted for his failure. He eventually quit his job because he thought his demotion was unfair and was not satisfied with desk duty. He then went to work for ASIS in Australia.

Alex Rider first meets him in Snakehead when he wanders into a minefield. Ash tells him not to move and leaves, claiming he will get help. This was later found to be a test, to see how Alex would react. Alex discovers that Ash is his godfather after meeting with Ethan Brooke, head of Covert Action for ASIS. The prospect of learning more about his past lures Alex into working for ASIS, alongside Ash, investigating the ruthless Snakehead. They are sent on a mission together to infiltrate the Snakehead by posing as Afghan refugees trying to gain the Snakehead's help in illegally immigrating to Australia. However Major Yu is on to them from the start, so both are captured in Darwin. Alex is sent to a surgery where his organs will be illegally harvested, whilst Ash vanishes along with the Major.

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