Nick Stone is desperate for American Citizenship, and the US version of the Yes Man just happens to be the father of his girlfriend, Carrie.  He’s offered citizenship in return for taking part in an undercover operation in Algeria.  Simply kill an Albanian citizen, who isn’t a good person at all, remove his head and return it.  But nothing is ever that easy for Stone.

He gets dragged further in, being left very little choice once George lets Carrie know that Nick has been working for him.  This time Nick is off to the South of France to capture some money launderers and pass them over for interrogation.  Not everything is plain sailing when Nick sees that the source of all the information they are getting is the same informant who gave them the tip-off for the previous job, and someone which Nick and his two team mates, Hubba-Hubba and Lotfi, really want to kill.

They carry out the collection of the first of the money launderers, and are about to go for the second when they are spotted and everything goes wrong.  One of them is captured by the terrorist funders, and driven away to a building site.  Nick and his remaining team member need to work to save him what would certainly be a very unpleasant death.

Nick always finds himself in these bad situations, and knows he will keep getting into them until they either find someone better, or he is killed.  He’s been told as much.  A solid sign that there is more to come from him.

I liked this story, it was filled with action and also tested people’s moral boundaries and gave such vivid descriptions of some horrific scenes; but that is part of the appeal of these books, they tell the stories in a manner which may well play out in real life, and doesn’t always have a happy ending.  This isn’t Hollywood, it’s a world inhabited with violence, and a one where the good guys will get hurt, and the bad guys can come out on top.  That is, after all, why Nick Stone has these adventures….to stop them!

Tags: Action, Andy McNab, cannonball read, Nick Stone, SAS, Thriller