Firewall

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Andy McNab

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Pages: 411 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 0593046161

Pub: Bantam Press

Pub date: 2000-10-16

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 46075

Editorial Review:

All freelances have problems when work dries up, but Nick Stone, hero of Andy McNab's second adventure thriller Firewall has worse problems than most of us. Expensively trained by the SAS, he now works for British Intelligence as a deniable operative, and he needs a regular income to take care of his responsibilities, which include psychiatric care for a traumatised orphan. He takes a lucrative mercenary job kidnapping a leading Chechen Mafioso; when the job goes sour, his victim is impressed by his grace under pressure and hires him to baby-sit a computer espionage expert on a jaunt into Finland. Not all is as it seems--Nick was engaged in wishful thinking to believe it was--and he finds himself adrift with little money and no weapons in Estonia in the dead of winter with a friend to rescue, the interests of the West to retrieve and, if possible, money to earn... This is an effective thriller because of the clash between its hero's competence and his less than entire brightness--Nick gets himself into messes and then gets out of them because of skills in combat, disguise and survival. This is a book filled with adrenaline-pumping excitement and a sense of bitterly cold places. --Roz Kaveney

Reader Reviews:

If James Bond were a masochist... (3/4 people found this helpful)

If James Bond were a masochist his name would be Nick Stone.

Nick Stone lives in an old dump of a house with a hole in the roof. He eats junk food and sleeps in seedy hotels and drives around in an old wreck of a car. He acts subservient to idiots and endures his boss who puts him on ice and insults him. He gets involved in one "mission impossible" after another, all of which end in fiasco. He gets beaten up repeatedly and eats aspirin like candy to keep the pain down. He trudges for hours through snowstorms and freezing weather and almost dies of exposure.

In other words, Nick Stone isn't just an anti-hero; he comes across as a total loser. And whenever he's given the choice he always chooses to do things the hardest way possible and suffer the consequences.

So why read a book starring Nick Stone? Because Nick Stone, despite everything I've just said about him, is the ultimate survivor. When the going gets tough (and this happens regularly) Nick Stone comes out of the confrontation alive and the bad guys are either dead or incapacitated.

Furthermore, you have the feeling that it's all real. Andy McNab was in the British SAS, and when he writes about Nick Stone you feel that everything is completely authentic. Everything that happens is described in detail and with a down-to-earth grittiness. The weapons and the explosives and the fights and the agent tradecraft are being written about by a man who really has the experience necessary to write about these things with authority.

Another plus factor is that Nick Stone, who tells the story in the first person, is not just taciturn, stoic and self-effacing; he's also sarcastic and good at poking fun at the world around him. It's a kind of black humor, but it suits the tone of the story and makes the book more enjoyable.

This is the first Andy McNab novel that I've read, and I'll conclude this review by admitting that I have ambivalent feelings about the book. I love the authenticity of the story telling and the belief in himself that Nick Stone shows no matter what happens. But why the heck does a man with his abilities and talents always have to choose to do things the hard way and end up living like a bum and getting involved in jobs that always go terribly wrong?

Rennie Petersen

Firewall - Excellent! (0/1 people found this helpful)

Though quite biased towards this sort of thing, I found Firewall surprisingly better than I thought it would be. Full of the realism and detail only a professional could give, McNab has actually made an excellent piece of fiction with this book.

Truly, you'll find you can't put it down - I didn't put it down until it was finished, and wasn't disappointed for doing it!

A must read for any fan of action/military thrillers.

Great literature? No, but a rollicking good yarn! (3/3 people found this helpful)

No matter how strong the plot, if the prose style is deficient then you're looking at a bad book. Likewise, a fairly flimsy plot can be brought to life by an entertaining style of writing. This is exactly what happens here.

Andy McNab will probably be the first person to admit that he's not inviting comparisons with Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy as an author. However what he does, he does extremely well: - espionage thrillers with lots of "insider" details concerning spy-craft, well written action sequences (something that Tom Clancy could learn a thing or two about), a central character who is all the more believable due to his flaws (once again Mr Clancy, please take note). No, it's unlikely to ever be considered "great literature" but Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were seen in the same way when first published. They are now regarded as the foremost examples of the detective genre. McNab's books will, I believe, receive similar "serious" recognition once the literati critics get used to the idea of ex-soldiers writing novels.

If you're looking for a book that will change your life & make you see the world differently, the you'll be disappointed with this. However, if you're in the market for a tightly written thriller with enough suspense to make you want to keep turning the pages right until the end (where you'll find a twist that may raise a smile), then this will fit the bill better than most.

Buy this book, open a can of beer, put your feet up & take the phone off the hook. You will not want to be disturbed!

A superb page turning thriller (1/1 people found this helpful)

I've read most of McNab's books and this really is an excellent read. Very un-put-downable! It is packed with gritty humour, intense action and loads of fascinating details. It's like lifting the lid on the undercover world of covert operations. McNab's has really developed his main character. Nick Stone, into a tragic hero who just lives, breaths, coughs, shivers, whose nose streams snot, and he comes kicking right out of the page. This is a really good read! If you are thinking about whether to buy a McNab book then do so - you will not be disappointed. One tiny flaw - McNab does not really understand what a Firewall is - how do you hack through a firewall from a house without any telecommunications?

Good Read! (0/0 people found this helpful)

After reading the all the other books my Andy Macnab (the 2 true stories and 2 fiction)i was dying to read firewall. On the whole it is another good book not great like Bravo two Zero or Remote Control but still very page turning.Although the story slows down in some places, such as the making of explosives, where i would get lossed in the technical stuff, there is still alot of action and suspense. The ending is Brilliant and well thought out as well as funny. Another excellant book my Andy, hope the others are up to the same standard. READ IT!!!!

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