Remote Control

click here for more details, find new or used items	Andy McNab Our price £5.49 (£6.99) New from £3.07 Used from £3.31 Pages: 512 (Mass Market Paperback) ISBN: 0552152358 Pub: Corgi Books Pub date: 2004-10-01 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 9097

Reader Reviews:

wooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (0/0 people found this helpful)

this is the best book ive ever read. five stars doesnt do it justice it needs to be at least 1000/5 is absolutly brilliant.
ive read many other books about the sas and by mcnab and this is the best of the lot, nothing has or will top this

A Fantastic Book (0/0 people found this helpful)

I read the boy soldier series so I had to read more of Andy McNabs books I read Bravo Two Zero then Imediate Action, I just wanted to read more so I read Remote Control, what a book absolute quality I could not put it down I spent the weekend just reading the book, Monday morning I went to a shop and baught the rest of the Nick Stone series.

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

Whether Andy McNab wrote this all off his own back or if it was heavily edited by someone else, this was, for a me, a suprisingly good book. I was recommended this book by someone who's all "Guns & Ammo" and I expected it to be very much along the lines of "I saw six blokes and I slotted five of 'em"; It really wasn't like that at all. The central character, Nick Stone, isn't the typical bullet-proof James Bond sort, but a real-life bloke with all the failings you'd expect (but don't necessarily encounter), and as such, he takes a fair few smacks as a result.

This is a very well told story that will make you want to read further into Nick Stone's life in future books.

Considering I'm a non-Guns and Ammo type, I was very impressed.

WOW!!!! (0/0 people found this helpful)

This fantastic novel keeps you begging for more as Andy Mcnab superbly tells us the amazing adventures of Nick Stone, K of Deniable Operations, as he journeys through America in a desperate scramble to save himself and seven year old Kelly. The suspense never stops, i could not put this book down as it is written with great description. Some parts are serious, some parts are funny, but one thing for sure is that Andy Mcnab certainly knows his stuff. I reccomend to everyone to buy this fantastic book. I am now going to be moving on to his second novel in the Nick Stone series 'Crisis Four'.

Better than (insert title here) or your money back! (2/3 people found this helpful)

Recently, I acquired a copy of the Stephen Leather thriller, HOT BLOOD, which had on its front cover a sticker that screamed "Better than Andy McNab or your money back". Leather's ongoing fictional hero, Dan "Spider" Shepherd, is a former member of the SAS now working for an ultra-secret undercover unit of London's Metropolitan Police. Nick Stone, the protagonist making his initial appearance here in McNab's first novel, REMOTE CONTROL, is an ex-SAS trooper now working for MI6. What, do Leather and McNab have a mano-a-mano thing going? (I don't ever remember seeing a Dean Koontz release with the claim, "King writes dross; read my stuff.") When queried by me, Stephen said that his publisher suggested the ploy. But, since I did end up buying REMOTE CONTROL, perhaps the point is to sell more books from both.

Here, Stone is tasked by his SIS controller to follow two hard IRA boyos to Washington, DC, to see what mischief they're up to. Once comfortable in his hotel room, Nick is almost immediately recalled home. But, before catching the next plane back across The Pond, Stone decides to visit old SAS pal Kev, now working for the DEA. Arriving at Kev's suburban home, Nick discovers his buddy bludgeoned to death and his wife and one of two daughters with their throats cut. Stone find's the second daughter, 7-year old Kelly, cowering in a hidey-hole. Realizing that Kelly saw the killers and her life is now in peril, and that he himself may become a suspect in the bloodbath, Stone grabs the girl and runs. Over the remainder of the book, our hero must discover the identity of the murderers, protect Kelly, and get both of them to safety in England where his boss, Simmonds, will certainly sort things out.

For a first novel, REMOTE CONTROL is better than average. McNab's personal tour of duty with the SAS imparts a patina of realism to the actions of his Stone character. Indeed, Nick is a Tough Guy in somewhat the same vein as author Lee Child's ex-Army MP, Jack Reacher. At one point in a desperate, hand-to-hand struggle with a Bad Guy over control of a pistol, Stone must essentially chew the man's face apart. Somehow, I don't see Leather's hero doing anything so messy.

One of the criticism's I've made of the Dan Shepherd series is the fact that Spider's young son Liam is trotted out as a prop in every installment to re-emphasize that widower Shepherd is otherwise a warm, decent, family man whose day job takes him to the world's hard and grotty edges. In REMOTE CONTROL, Kelly also starts out as a prop. But, by the conclusion, she plays an integral, nail-biting, and very satisfying part. I see from plot summaries that Kelly also appears in follow-up volumes of the Nick Stone series, so I've gone ahead and ordered the second out of curiosity to see where McNab takes the character.

The drawbacks to REMOTE CONTROL are that we've seen the scenario before in books and films - adult and child flee a deadly conspiracy hand-in-hand - and, well before the end, the coming betrayal twist becomes all to obvious.

By profession, Stephen Leather is a journalist who's lived all over the world. McNab - a pseudonym ostensibly to protect his identity from vengeful terrorists left over from his bad old SAS days - continues to work with intelligence organizations on both sides of the Atlantic. I suspect, therefore, that Andy's books will be more realistic in the finer points, while Stephen's will show a wider scope of imagination. In any case, both are excellent British authors creating some very entertaining reads.

Hey, Stephen and Andy, why don't you both co-author a thriller in which both Dan and Nick appear? The potential for a friendly, or not so friendly, rivalry between the two heroes is almost too good to pass up.

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