The books, have had a large number of very graphic but creative deaths. Horowitz himself has acknowledged his penchant for killing characters in creative ways, even having a list of his five favorite kills in the series (Magnus Payne, Charlie Roper, Winston Yu, Damien Cray, and Max Grendel):
As this is a Death Trope, spoilers are left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
- The Big Bads:
- Dr. Grief is killed when Alex launches a snowmobile at the helicopter he is escaping in from a ski ramp.
- Damian Cray dies when he is sucked into one of the engines of Air Force One, reducing him to a "cloud of red gas" that disappears into the atmosphere.
- Julia Rothman is crushed when Alex destroys the hot air balloon carrying the satellites required for her scheme, and the entire platform falls to earth and lands directly on her.
- Nikolei Drevin attempts to escape in a seaplane; Alex ties two boats to the plane's floats, hoping it will make it too heavy to take off, but instead the boats and ropes get tangled in some foliage and tear the seaplane in half.
- Major Winston Yu suffers from brittle bone disease. He dies when Alex deliberately sets off the bomb Yu is using in his Evil Plan too early, meaning it cannot cause a tsunami as originally planned; Yu is hit by the bomb's shockwave, and it fractures every single bone in his body at once. His remains are described as a bag of skin filled with broken bones.
- Desmond McCain goes out when Alex attaches an explosive pen to a barrel of fuel and rolls it over to him, immolating him.
- Abdul-Aziz Al-Razim falls off a bridge in his fortress whilst fighting Alex, and lands in a giant pile of salt his men have collected from the nearby desert. The salt pile acts like quicksand, crushing him and pulling him underneath, and cooks him from the inside once it goes through his pores. He is last seen with white foam pouring out of his eyes and mouth as his head is pulled under.
- Vladimir Sharkovsky was forced to play Russian Roulette and got shot.
- Giovanni and Eduardo Grimaldi chase Alex down in a steam locomotive. Alex fills a thermos with fuel and throws it into the train's chimney, causing it to explode and derail the train, throwing them into the side of a mountain.
- Other Characters:
- Nadia Vole is stung to death by a Portuguese Man-O-War after Alex destroys the giant fish tank holding it from the inside, being hit by debris and breaking her limbs in the process so she can't even try to get it off.
- Michael J. Roscoe falls sixty stories down an elevator shaft after accidentally stepping into a hologram of an elevator.
- Tom Turner and Belinda Troy (and a shark) are Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by a set of underwater spikes.
- Conrad has his back broken by a large magnet — because of all the metal in his body — then falls into water and drowns because of the extra weight.
- Charlie Roper is crushed in a giant bottle by falling quarters.
- Max Grendel is stung by a suitcase full of scorpions.
- Nile is sent falling back to Earth from space after being hit with a giant fireball.
- Adam Wright has a hole blown in his chest by a medallion made of caesium while showering.
- Magnum Payne floats backwards into a zero-g floating knife, which impales him through the back of his head.
- An unnamed security guard is consumed by carnivorous plants, after Alex accidentally pushes him into a patch of them.
- Leonard Straik has a poisonous Cone Snail shoved down his throat.
- Myra Bennet is eaten by crocodiles.
- Erik Gunter gets stung by a scorpion AND smashed in the nose with a gun AND breaks his neck in a fall.
- Dragana Novak is stabbed up her nose and into her brain with sharpened wires.
- Even Alex Rider himself has been threatened with this:
- The beginning of Stormbreaker sees him trapped in a car crushing machine.
- In Stormbreaker, he is dropped into a giant fish tank and left at the mercy of the Portuguese Man-O-War that would ultimately kill Vole; in particular, being told that when he inevitably tires in the water, he'd drift into its path.
- Point Blanc threatens him with being Strapped to an Operating Table, slowly vivisected to death without anesthetic.
- Then in Skeleton Key, Conrad interrogates him as he's about to be fed into a pair of rolling grindstones, crushing him from the toes up. Only Sarov's timely intervention saves him.
- In Snakehead, Winston Yu decides to harvest his organs, but leave him alive - basically a living organ bag.
- Crocodile Tears: Alex is left hanging onto chin-up handles above a river full of crocodiles and very nearly loses his grip.
