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A review by clivemeister
Firewall by Andy McNab
4.0
I continue to enjoy the Nick Stone series of thrillers from Mr McNab, and this one continues the theme: our underdog hero desperately needs money to help his young ward (see previous books for details), and takes a job for the large pile of cash on offer.
All does not turn out well in this regard, although in the end, Nick sorts through it all, and most of the bad end badly, while on the whole the good survive. On the way, Nick is periodically beaten up by the bad, manages to fall into almost every available pile of vomit and/or urine, and gets very very cold and very very wet with the good.
This is part of the charm of Nick: all this bad stuff happens to him, and through it all he's definitely not the sort of Bond-like superhero, or the teflon-like character we find with Jack Reacher, say. Crap falls upon him from a great height at every turn - realistically bad stuff, too - and what we then get to see is the utter relentlessness of his character, his determination to see it through, come what may. He's like the Terminator: he "absolutely will not stop, until you are dead."
The other thing that we like about these books is the technical detail: when Andy McNab describes Nick improvises a tool for climbing a fence, he does it with gripping realism. When he has Nick coming across a stash of Russian ex-military explosives, Nick not only gives you the designation of the landmines, but he is also appalled at the fact that the detonators don't have their wires twisted together, as this puts them at risk of being detonated by a stray wireless signal. McNab really knows this stuff through personal experience, he's not just reading it out of his copy of [b:Jane's Infantry Weapons 2007-2008|1982681|Jane's Infantry Weapons 2007-2008|Richard D. Jones|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327995785l/1982681._SY75_.jpg|1986167].
Also worth noting that these books are very realistic in their descriptions of the environment he's moving through. As Nick travels through various Eastern Bloc countries, the details of the buildings and the landscape really ring true, and are well written.
Boy's own adventure stuff this may be, but it is top class, and I'll definitely be reading further in the series.
All does not turn out well in this regard, although in the end, Nick sorts through it all, and most of the bad end badly, while on the whole the good survive. On the way, Nick is periodically beaten up by the bad, manages to fall into almost every available pile of vomit and/or urine, and gets very very cold and very very wet with the good.
This is part of the charm of Nick: all this bad stuff happens to him, and through it all he's definitely not the sort of Bond-like superhero, or the teflon-like character we find with Jack Reacher, say. Crap falls upon him from a great height at every turn - realistically bad stuff, too - and what we then get to see is the utter relentlessness of his character, his determination to see it through, come what may. He's like the Terminator: he "absolutely will not stop, until you are dead."
The other thing that we like about these books is the technical detail: when Andy McNab describes Nick improvises a tool for climbing a fence, he does it with gripping realism. When he has Nick coming across a stash of Russian ex-military explosives, Nick not only gives you the designation of the landmines, but he is also appalled at the fact that the detonators don't have their wires twisted together, as this puts them at risk of being detonated by a stray wireless signal. McNab really knows this stuff through personal experience, he's not just reading it out of his copy of [b:Jane's Infantry Weapons 2007-2008|1982681|Jane's Infantry Weapons 2007-2008|Richard D. Jones|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327995785l/1982681._SY75_.jpg|1986167].
Also worth noting that these books are very realistic in their descriptions of the environment he's moving through. As Nick travels through various Eastern Bloc countries, the details of the buildings and the landscape really ring true, and are well written.
Boy's own adventure stuff this may be, but it is top class, and I'll definitely be reading further in the series.