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This article concerns Alex Rider's mother. For Michael Roscoe's secretary, see Helen Bosworth.

I was part of the world that put John in danger. She loved your dad; she hated what he did and she was smart enough to know that she couldn't talk him out of it

—Ash explaining Helen to Alex Rider

Helen Rider (née Beckett) was Alex Rider's mother. She appears in the missing chapter of Snakehead, CODA.

Demise

In the missing chapter CODA, she was killed, along with her husband, John Rider, when their best friend Ash, who was working for Scorpia, set a bomb on their private aeroplane. This happened while Alex was still an infant (he had a minor ear infection, so stayed behind), and his uncle, Ian Rider, became his legal guardian.

Life

She was born about 1959. Before her death, Helen was a nurse, meeting John Rider at Oxford while studying medicine. She later helped him to recover from injuries sustained during a mission. In the novel Snakehead, Ash speaks about how he actually asked her out, but she "turned me [Ash] down very sweetly". John and Helen later married at a registry office in London, with only half a dozen people in attendance.

In the novel Scorpia, Alex sees a vision of his mother, smiling at him, after he is shot (a near death experience).

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