Firewall - Hardcover

Andy McNab

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593046161 ISBN 13: 9780593046166

Publisher: BANTAM PRESS, 2000

Synopsis

Tough, resourceful and ruthless, ex-SAS trooper Nick Stone is now working for the intelligence service on deniable operations. And is desperately in need of cash. When he is offered a lucrative freelance job, Stone thinks his problems are over. All he needs to do is kidnap a Russian mafia warlord. And so Stone is thrust into the grim underworld of Estonia, with unknown aggressors stalking the Arctic landscape. Russia has launched a cyber-espionage attack, hacking into the West’s most sensitive military secrets. Stone must stop them. But the mafia are waiting in the wings with their own chillingly brutal solution... ‘Other thriller writers do their research, but McNab has actually been there’ Sunday Times

About this title

Review:

In his third outing (following Remote Control and Crisis Four), Nick Stone, Andy McNab's series SAS agent, is off the Firm's regular payroll owing to a major screwup in his last assignment that left his best friend's family slaughtered--except for the one child who survived. Little Kelly needs expensive treatment for the post-traumatic stress that's turned her nearly catatonic, so Nick takes on a freelance assignment that gets him mixed up with Russian organized crime--in particular, with an enigmatic mob boss who has designs on some Finnish cybertechnology. When Nick realizes it's not industrial espionage that he's involved with but military secrets, he's caught between warring factions of the Russian Mafia and the Anglo-American alliance of intelligence agencies. The Westerners will do anything to keep the Echelon program out of the hands of Valentin Lebed--the Chechnyan Mafioso who makes Nick an offer he can't refuse--and the Maliskia, a gang of rival Russian criminals who want to derail Lebed's plans and take over Echelon themselves.

The action ranges from Helsinki to St. Petersburg to London, the weaponry is fully detailed, and the techniques of infiltration and retrieval carefully outlined; McNab, a former SAS commando who, according to the author's note "is still wanted by a number of terrorist organizations and is therefore forbidden to reveal his face or current location," obviously remembers every ache, pain, bruise, and injury he suffered in his life of derring-do, since they're all completely and graphically described here, too. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

ANDY McNAB joined the infantry at the age of sixteen and was a British soldier for eighteen years. ‘Badged’ as a member of 22 Special Air Service Regiment in 1984, he was involved for the next ten years in both covert and overt special operations worldwide. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, ‘will remain in regimental history for ever’. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army’s most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS. He wrote about his experiences in three books: the phenomenal bestseller Bravo Two Zero, Immediate Action and Seven Troop. He is the author of the bestselling Nick Stone thrillers. Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK and is on the board of a private security company operating in hazardous environments.

About this edition

• Publisher: BANTAM PRESS
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0593046161
• ISBN 13: 9780593046166
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 411