Choose a Line- Snakehead

          I'm reading Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz. It's the 7th book in the Alex Rider series. The main character is a 14 year old spy for the British Intelligence Agency, MI6. While recovering from his last mission in Australia, Alex get another call. This time, from ASIS, the Australian Intelligence Agency. Alex had sworn a week ago that he would never agree to do another mission again, but a certain detail about this particular mission makes Alex unable to say no. The mission: Snakehead is the world's most profitable "illegal supermarket" It sells everything that can be bought legally. Guns, slaves, conflict-diamonds, fake documents, biological weapons, so on. ASIS is looking to infiltrate one of the biggest Snakeheads, located in Bangkok. So they need to get people inside the "supermarket" to get info without anyone having suspicions. Alex's job is to assist an older agent to make things less suspicious. Alex and the agent, whose name is Ash, will pretend to be father and son refugees from Afghanistan who want to be smuggled into Australia. The part about this mission that tempts Alex is that Ash is a good friend of John Rider, Alex's father, and is Alex's godfather. Alex believes that Ash can tell Alex about his father's unknown past including how he died. When Alex arrives in Bangkok, he looks out of the window. The author gives a description of the city...

"The city was spread out on the other side of a wide brown river that curved and twisted as far as he could see. Skyscrapers stood in the far distance. Nearer by, there were hotels, temples, palaces with perfect lawns, and--standing side by side with them--shacks and slumhouses and warehouses so dilapidated they looked as if they might fall over at any time. All manner of boats were making their way up and down the murky water. Some were modern, carrying coal and iron. Some were ferries with strange, curving roofs, like floating pagodas. The nimblest were elongated, long and wafer thin with the driver leaning wearily over the tiller at the very back. The sun was setting. The sky was huge and gray. It was like looking at a television screen with the color turned off." (78)
          This entire paragraph gives a very visual image of Bangkok. The descriptive words were so effective that I was actually conjuring up images of what the city might actually look like. When it said "Wide brown river that curved and twisted as far as he could see" I imagined seeing a dirty brown river that flows off into the distance with no end. I imagined the New York City-like buildings rising above in the background. And then I imagined luxurious buildings for the rich when it said "nearer by, there were hotels, temples. palaces with perfect lawns." I really like the word "dilapidated". Dilapidated- In a state of disrepair or ruin as a result of age or neglect. I thought it was one of those out-of-the-box words that you don't really expect to be thrown in. When using the word dilapidated, I can imagine miserable-looking buildings that are poorly constructed and unsanitary. And then I imagine the various boats floating on the river. Everything-- like luxurious leisure boats, commercial boats, and local taxi boats to travel from one side of the city to the other. I finally imagined the low sun making everything that it touched glow. It didn't matter if it was the very rich side of the city or the very poor side across the river. The azure sky and yellow-orange sun would outline everything and everyone.