The Gentleman is an antagonist in the Alex Rider books, he appears working under different villains. He is, like Yassen Gregorovich, a hired assassin.
Biography[]
Point Blanc[]
The Gentleman first appears in this book. He is hired by Dr. Hugo Grief and his team to kill New York based electronics billionaire Michael J. Roscoe, because Roscoe suspected his son, Paul, wasn't his real son. Fearing for his plans being exposed, Grief ordered the Gentleman to kill Roscoe.
The Gentleman kill an elevator maintenance engineer for Roscoe Tower, named Sam Green, assumed his identity, threw the body into the Hudson River, and learned the layout of Roscoe Tower. For this, the Gentleman had demanded, and been paid, twenty billion dollars.
The Gentleman was a good technician; he was able to programme Roscoe's private elevator into rising up one floor, even though it had not been programmed to do so, designed only for Roscoe himself to go up to his sixtieth floor office and the lobby, and nowhere else. He broke into the elevator shaft and broke into the elevator, in under an hour. The Gentleman also projected a hologram image of the elevator, so Roscoe didn't look twice. When Roscoe stepped into the fake elevator, he fell to his death.
The Gentleman then flew to Switzerland, having been given his reward, and with the money he bought his calling card of black tulips, sending them to Roscoe's wife, not leaving his name.
Crocodile Tears[]
When Reverend Desmond McCain lost a 1983 boxing championship fight with Buddy Sangster, who broke McCain's jaw, almost permanently, McCain went to a clinic in Las Vegas, but he knew it was corrupt, and he hired the Gentleman to kill both Sangster - the Gentleman knocked Sangster into a oncoming train - and the man who fixed McCain's jaw. Pleased with this, McCain paid the Gentleman his reward and the man is still out there, never having even directly met Alex, and thus been successful.
This incident is related to Alex by Edward Pleasure, who admits to watching Sangster's televised funeral, noting that a fan (really the Gentleman) who sent in a hundred black tulips.
TV Show[]
In the first season of the 2020 TV show adaption of the Alex Rider novel which adapts Point Blanc, his role is given to Yassen Gregorovich.
Appearance[]
The Gentleman is a very polite, cultivated character, not above action or dangerous situations. The Gentleman's real appearance is never disclosed. He is able to disguise himself without thinking. He will do anything for money, and killing is second nature to the man.
Trivia[]
- The Gentleman has never met Alex Rider.
- The Gentleman is one of the only villains alive in the end of the Alex Rider series.
- Despite being caught on film, he has never been arrested.
- Although never caught, it is rumored that he is one of seven prisoners arrested in Gibraltar during Scorpia Rising.
- However, by the events of Nightshade, this is retconned, and the assassin imprisoned in Gibraltar is a Caribbean man who refuses to divulge his real name, earning himself the moniker "Mr. Someone".
