Skeleton Key (Alex Rider)

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William Jones (Number Seven): The long-lost son of Mrs. Jones. He was suspicious of "Julius" since his arrival, but presumably initially accepted him after he was saved by "Julius". His role in the series has been compared to that of Alec Trevelyan (aka Agent 006/ Janus) from the James Bond movie GoldenEye.

Ian Rider is Alex's uncle and became his guardian after his parents died. He worked for MI6, undercover of being a banker. Ian and Alex had a very good relationship. They were very close, and when Ian was home they did practically everything together. Ian often took Alex around the world to educate him about other cultures. He never let Alex call him "uncle". Ian also taught him a lot of things that prepared him for being a spy, such as scuba diving, climbing and driving. He is killed at the beginning of Stormbreaker by Yassen Gregorovich. His death led Alex into working for MI6. In the film Stormbreaker, Blunt was portrayed by Bill Nighy, and in the TV series he is portrayed by Stephen Dillane. The Big Circle (collectively) is a secondary independent antagonist in Skeleton Key. They are a Chinese Triad gang involved in drugs, vice, illegal immigration, and gambling. Alex first encounters them at the Wimbledon tennis tournament when they attempt systematic match fixing to earn money in bets. After Alex foils this plan, he becomes a major target of the Triad, who send a high-ranking member after him in Cornwall. After this member fails too, Alex is sent undercover with CIA agents Tom Turner (Glen Carver in U.S. publications) and Belinda Troy for his safety. At the end of the book, Mrs. Jones reveals she bargained with the Triad in a prisoner exchange to leave Alex alone. Alex is shown to attend Brookland Comprehensive School in almost every book and also in the movie and TV series. [12] Tom Harris is one of Alex's friends at Brookland. Raised in a somewhat different environment than most other boys his age, Alex tends not to relate much to his peers and does not have many close friends in the school. However, as he is not the type to seek popularity, Alex doesn’t mind this much.

In the Alex Rider TV series, Joe Byrne is reimagined as a woman and the Deputy CIA Jo Bryne, played by Rakie Ayola. Ian Rider is played by Ewan McGregor in the film adaptation of Stormbreaker and Andrew Buchan in the Alex Rider TV series.

David Friend • Smithers • James Sprintz • Michael J. Roscoe • Wolf • John Crawley • Fiona Friend • Julius Grief Major Winston Yu is one of the members of the executive board of Scorpia, and the main antagonist of the novel Snakehead. He was asked by Zeljan Kurst, another board member of Scorpia, to command operation "Reef Encounter". This involved generating an artificial tsunami to destroy Reef Island and the west coast of Australia by detonating a stolen bomb named "Royal Blue" between two underwater tectonic plates when they are most vulnerable. He was the superior of Anan Sukit, but apparently inherits control of the Bangkok Snakehead when Ben "Fox" Daniels kills Sukit. Yu suffers from brittle bone disease, which makes his skeleton highly unstable. His mother named him after Winston Churchill. Tamara Knight is introduced in the novel Ark Angel as Nikolei Drevin's personal assistant. At first, she is cold towards Alex and she doesn't seem to like him at all. However, it was later revealed that she was working for the CIA when she saved Alex's life from drowning when he went scuba diving. Tamara softened towards him and they joined forces to stop Drevin's plans to destroy his Ark Angel space hotel. They were captured by Magnus Payne and the Force Three "freedom fighters", in fact mercenaries working for Drevin. Tamara was injured and was imprisoned. She was later rescued by Ed Shulsky and a CIA task force. She was the one who convinced Alex to go into space and stop Payne from setting off the bomb that would destroy Ark Angel.

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Yu fought in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, serving four tours of duty and rising to the rank of major; however, he was soon diagnosed with brittle bone disease and forced to leave the Army. He then took up a desk job at MI6, but he was not satisfied with this job, and secretly sold information to Britain's enemies. When Scorpia was founded in Paris, Yu was one of the twelve founders. Skeleton Key - He was sent to "work" for the CIA, originally meant to watch from the sidelines until his "family" finished their work. Nightshade is a freelance terror unit posing as a cult, specialising in capturing the children of families connected to the military, intelligence and other areas, and indoctrinating them to be the perfect child soldier, utterly obedient to the will of the "Teachers", who are the executive committee of Nightshade. The four Teachers, all Americans, are: The Grimaldi brothers Eduardo and Giovanni (escaped; both deceased when their train exploded in Never Say Die)

Yassen Gregorovich is a recurring villain in the series, appearing in Stormbreaker, Eagle Strike, and Russian Roulette. He is also mentioned in Scorpia and Snakehead. In the end of Stormbreaker he saves the life of Alex Rider by shooting Herod Sayle on a helicopter pad. He was a Russian-born contract killer, trained by, and apparently working for, the clandestine terrorist organisation Scorpia. A superb assassin, Yassen was believed to be one of the world's best. da Silva is the main antagonist of the short story Christmas at Gunpoint. Very little is known about him. Alex is described as strikingly good looking with an athletic build, dark brown eyes said to be “too serious for his face” and fair hair.Alex continues to investigate when Cray finds out what Alex is doing and forces him to take part in a real life replica of Cray’s video game. Before he escapes, he does some searching and steals the flash-drive he had seen Cray with before he was caught, knowing it was important. A furious Cray then kidnaps Sabina on Yassen’s advice to force Alex to return the flash-drive to him. Cray reveals his plan to launch 25 nuclear missiles and destroy all the drug sources in the world, claiming drugs to be “the greatest evil”. Alex and Sabina are then taken hostage by Cray and forced onto Air Force One, the Presidential Plane, where Cray can authorize the missiles release on. Yassen is shot dead when he refuses to kill Alex, though he is avenged moments later after Alex pushes Cray into the plane’s engine, killing him. Yassen tells Alex to find Scorpia before he dies, while Sabina disables Cray’s missile launch. In Scorpia Rising, there is an unnamed assassin in the prison that also contained Julius Grief. This was rumoured to be the Gentleman, although in Nightshade he was revealed to be a Caribbean hitman known as Mr Someone. McCain mentions later on in the novel that he had killed Straik by shoving a poisonous Cone snail from the Poison Dome down his throat, as he did not want to share the money with anyone.