“And Alex already knew. He knew from the way the police stood there, awkward and unhappy. But he also knew from the tone of their voices. Funeral voices…that was how he would describe them later. The sort of voices people would use people use when they come to tell you that someone close to you has died.”

The word choice “funeral voices” highlights Alex’s perceptiveness and evokes the auditory and visual imagery of death, mourning, and condolence. The quote foreshadows that Alex’s uncle Ian is dead, the narrative turn that will result in him taking Ian’s place in MI6.

“Everything of any value had been stripped away and only the rusting carcasses remained, heaped one on top of the other, waiting to be fed into the crusher.”

Horowitz uses personification to describe the forsaken cars as “carcasses,” similar to those of dead humans, like Ian. This description also establishes that Ian’s car will be crushed, with all evidence of his murder wiped away. This makes Alex’s investigation more urgent, showing he has limited time to learn how Ian died before the car is destroyed.

“Ian Rider hadn’t died in any accident. What had killed him was plain to see—even to someone who had never seen such a thing before. A spray of bullets had caught the car full on the driver’s side, shattering the front tire, smashing the windshield and side windows, and punching into the side panels.”

This quote reveals that Ian was murdered, the discovery of which is the inciting incident that leads to Alex catching MI6’s attention and being recruited by them. This also provides a shock for Alex, who lived a comfortable life before Ian’s death. It leads Alex to want to know more about Ian.