A new Quick Read title from the author of Bravo Two Zero.
Afghanistan, 2009. A Rifle section is halfway through their six-month tour of duty in Helmand Province. Sixteen men from their Battalion have already been killed. Forty-seven others have been wounded and flown back home.
The last three months have been tough and it shows. Their kit is in a bad way. They are in a bad way. Young men with tans, scruffy beards, peeling noses and lips burnt raw by the Afghan sun. Despite the hardships they are enjoying their time out here learning how to fight the Taliban. The lads are on their way to becoming the best soldiers in the Army.
Last Night Another Soldier... is the story of four of the young men in this Rifle section, partly told from the point of view of eighteen-year-old squaddie, David 'Briggsy' Briggs.
**
EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Aborting an officially-sanctioned assassination attempt at the Houses of Parliament when he realises who the target is, Secret Intelligence Service deniable operator Nick Stone is given a chilling ultimatum: fly to Panama and finish the job, or Kelly, the eleven-year-old orphan in his charge, will be killed. Stone is on the edge, struggling to pick up the pieces of his shattered life, trying to come to terms with a heartrending decision he has made about Kelly?s future. By the time he arrives in Panama, he is close to breaking point. And in the sweltering Central American jungle, Stone finds himself at the centre of a lethal conspiracy involving Colombian guerrillas, the US government and Chinese big business. At stake are hundreds of innocent lives. He has a critically injured friend to rescue and miles of dense rainforest to navigate. And in an explosive denouement at the Panama Canal, Nick Stone is forced to make the toughest decision of his life?
Aborting an officially-sanctioned assassination attempt at the Houses of Parliament when he realises who the target is, Secret Intelligence Service deniable operator Nick Stone is given a chilling ultimatum: fly to Panama and finish the job, or Kelly, the eleven-year-old orphan in his charge, will be killed. Stone is on the edge, struggling to pick up the pieces of his shattered life, trying to come to terms with a heartrending decision he has made about Kelly?s future. By the time he arrives in Panama, he is close to breaking point. And in the sweltering Central American jungle, Stone finds himself at the centre of a lethal conspiracy involving Colombian guerrillas, the US government and Chinese big business. At stake are hundreds of innocent lives. He has a critically injured friend to rescue and miles of dense rainforest to navigate. And in an explosive denouement at the Panama Canal, Nick Stone is forced to make the toughest decision of his life?
From Publishers Weekly
The fourth in a series of Nick Stone thrillers (after the well-received Firewall), this one gets off to an exciting if typical start as freelance assassin and ex-British SAS agent Stone orchestrates a precision team hit on a high-level target attending a snobby dessert social on the banks of the Thames. The target is to be identified by the team leader, Yes Man, who is to tap the victim on the left shoulder and wait for the snipers to do the dirty work. At the moment of contact, without explanation, Yes Man compromises the mission, and the police end up killing the three snipers. Stone is inexplicably given a second chance to complete his assignment alone by "last light Friday" at the victim's fortified home near the Panama Canal Zone. At this point (if not earlier), the novel loses coherence, dwelling on Stone's encounters with an aging tree-hugger college professor, his ganja-smoking young wife and their adopted daughter, who provide him with weapons and a base of operations in the Panamanian rain forest. Among Stone's spine-tingling preoccupations in Panama are chigger bites, a nagging headache and his nonstop guzzling of water, and there is a plethora of dialogue-driven exposition about Noriega's overthrow and the ruin of the rain forests. More choir boy than cold-blooded killer, Stone is given to mawkish introspection and invites self-destruction by confessing all sorts of sins to his colleagues. Most readers will be praying for an early sunset.
From Booklist
Former British special services agent Nick Stone, now a freelancer, never fails to come through. This time, though, as he's manning the controls for a sanctioned, three-sniper assassination at a Houses of Parliament function, he chokes. Seems that his target is a boy, and his human side causes him to abort the operation. This doesn't sit well with his bosses, of course, and Nick figures he will be their next victim. But his life is spared on one condition: he must carry out the original assignment on his own. His punishment if he fails again is certain death, but even more excruciating is the bosses' threat to kill Kelly, the 13-year-old for whom Nick acts as guardian and who witnessed her family's execution in McNab's first novel, Remote Control (1999). The target is the son of a Chinese businessman with apparent ties to Colombian guerrillas, and as Nick gets closer to grasping the plot that led a legitimate government to hire an assassin, he becomes the hunted as well as the hunter. While traipsing through Central American jungles (leading to a climactic scene at the Panama Canal), Nick is haunted by the image of Kelly being in danger, motivating him to make some tough, life-altering choices. An exciting story line, believable dialogue, and a flawed but honorable hero converge in what is clearly the best Nick Stone adventure yet. Mary Frances Wilkens
Enter Series Index : 04 of 16
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Title Parm A : Last Night Another Soldier