HomeMarketeer > Books > Andy McNab

ASU

Active Service Unit

AWOL

Absent without leave

CA

Cover Address

Contact

Enemy aware of you

CQB

Close Quarter Battle

Det

As in North Det - Deatchments in Nortern Ireland to deal with IRA

Drama

Violence, action

FOB

Forward Operating Base

Hard Routine

Not doing anything that would give away position - no lights, no smoking, no cooking

K

Deniable Operator

LUP

Lying Up Point

MOE

As in MOE kit - Mode of Entry kit. Lockpicking tools etc.

NBC

Nuclear Biological Chemical kit - protection suit

No drama

No worries, no problem

Shorts

Pistol, small weapon

Sign

Evidence that you were there - footprints, broken undergrowth etc.

Stag

On watch

The Good News

Pain, normally at the receiving end of a boot

VDM

Visual Distinguishing Mark

Remote Control

Nick Stone left the Special Air Service soon after the shooting of three IRA terrorists in Gibraltar. Now working for British Intelligence on deniable operations, he discovers the seemingly senseless murders of a fellow SAS soldier and his family in Washington, DC. Only a seven-year-old daughter, Kelly, has survived - and the two of them are immediately on the run from unidentified pursuers. Stone doesn't even know which of them is the target. On his own, Stone stands a chance of escape. But he needs to protect the girl and together they plunge into a dark world of violence and corruption in which friend cannot be told from foe. As events draw to their blazing and unexpected climax, Stone discovers the shocking truth about governments, terrorism and commerce - and the greed that binds the three together...

Remote Control is a new kind of thriller, gritty, vivid and menacing, with a pace that never lets up. Other thriller-writers talk the talk. Only McNab has walked the walk.

Firewall

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.

Crisis Four

In British military intelligence, deniable operations is the most dangerous tightrope you can walk. Ex-SAS man, Nick Stone, has no choice in the matter. He may be tough, resourceful, ruthless, highly trained, but he still must do what his masters want, whatever that might be.

Sarah Greenwood is beautiful, steel-willed, intelligent, cunning - the only woman that Stone has ever let under his guard. And now he's been sent to hunt her down ...

As the pair are pursued through the backwoods of the American South, Stone's mission becomes a deadly game of cat and mouse, and a journey to the heart of a terrifying conspiracy to which only Sarah holds the key. And as the tension builds to breaking point, the two are led to a confrontation that echoes our worst nightmares.

Last Light

Last Light is a resounding demonstration of Andy McNab's evolving abilities, offering a richer level of plotting, along with the customary well-turned rough stuff. McNab might initially have seemed to be some kind of briefly shining star in the bestseller firmament, his SAS experience and well-advertised pseudonym guaranteeing a couple of toughly authentic thrillers in the style of Bravo Two Zero, and no more. But such successive books as Firewall, Remote Control and Crisis Four have categorically demonstrated that he has more than enough top-flight skills to sustain a long writing career.

In Last Light, after terminating an officially approved assassination bid at the Houses of Parliament when he realises the identity of the intended target, McNab's hard-as-nails protagonist Nick Stone, "deniable operator" of the intelligence services, is severely disciplined by his bosses. He is told to travel to Panama and finish the job, or he and Kelly (the 11-year-old girl he is guarding) will be "taken care of" themselves. As Nick gets ready for his assignment in central America, he soon finds that his enemies have turned the tables on him: he is now the hunted, and finds himself up to his neck in a murky plot involving Colombian rebels and the US government. All the usual McNab fingerprints are here: not too much shading, but flinty characterisation and a barrel load of high-velocity action.

Dark Winter

Andy McNab's thrillers have been enormously successful, and Dark Winter will no doubt allow his publishers to add more noughts to his already impressive sales figures. McNab's secret is reliability. He always delivers the kind of high-octane thrills his readers expect and seems immune to the hit-or-miss syndrome that afflicts so many thriller writers.

Dark Winter has the tough (and battered) Nick Stone back in business, still parleying the skills he learnt in the SAS into his new role as a Special Intelligence Service operative. Al-Qaeda are concentrating their forces in south-east Asia (McNab is as topical as ever), and Nick is sent by the CIA to deal with one of Osama bin Laden's most dangerous biochemists. But Nick is given a female partner, and the mission takes unexpected turns. Back in the US, and struggling with the problems of being guardian to an orphaned girl, Nick finds a whole nest of terrorists plotting atrocities in both the US and the UK, and his involvement becomes (against his will) very personal indeed.

As always, the mixture here is incandescent, punctuating steadily accelerating narrative trajectory with stunningly orchestrated bursts of action at frequent intervals. McNab's characterisation of anyone other than the resourceful Nick is serviceable rather than detailed, but this is a strategy to ensure that the principal ingredient here--bone-crunching action--is always foregrounded. It may be a while since McNab was an SAS man himself, but the tradecraft is always coolly plausible, and McNab fans can count on getting their money's worth.

Liberation Day

A Zodiac inflatable slips away from a submarine off the North African coast. If he hadn't needed American citizenship so badly, Nick Stone wouldn't have agreed to do this one last job, but the CIA's offer of a new life in the United States, and the chance to share it with Carrie, the woman he's fallen in love with, is one he cannot refuse.

The job seems simple enough for a man of his particular skills: infiltrate the hostile and violent republic of Algeria, kill a money-laundering local businessman, and bring back his severed head to the West. Stone isn't told why the man has to die like this, and there are some questions you just don't ask. But with events unfolding dangerously fast, Stone realizes that he has by no means been told the full story. Operating in the perilous underworld of the south of France, Stone is in at the deep end of a very dirty war. In the most daunting mission he has yet undertaken, Stone ultimately finds himself confronted by the most desperate dilemma a man could ever face.

Deep Black

Nick Stone's future has never looked as bleak. The only person he's ever loved is dead. The only people who might give him a reason not to join her have turned their backs. Until a chance encounter with a man he saved ten years ago appears to throw him a lifeline...But on the bullet- and bomb-scarred streets of Baghdad, second chances are in short supply. A simple quest becomes a journey to the heart of a chilling conspiracy; too late, he realizes that he is being used as bait - to lure into the open a man he believes can offer some salvation, but whom the darker forces of the West will stop at nothing to destroy...From its violent and shocking opening in the Muslim enclaves of Bosnia, through vivid, lightning-paced action in war-torn Iraq, this unforgettable story proves Andy McNab yet again to be the master of the modern thriller, a writer at the very top of his game.

Aggressor

Ex-deniable operator Nick Stone seems to be living his dream, not a care in the world as he steers his camper van round the surfing and parachuting centres of Australia, a board on the roof, free fall rig behind him, and a beautiful young backpacker at his side. But when he witnesses on TV the massacre of children in a terrorist siege the other side of the world, long-suppressed memories are triggered and Nick finds himself catapulted once more into working for the American secret services - only this time, of his own free will. As events unfold in the bleak, medieval villages of Azerbajhan and teeming streets of modern Istanbul, it isn't long before Nick discovers the true objective of the mission on which he has embarked. His talents are being misused by those who stalk the corridors of power.. and he is determined to make a stand. Hurtled at breakneck pace through a deadly landscape of greed, violence and ever-shifting allegiances, the reader will be left in no doubt that McNab is the master of the genre - and "Aggressor" is McNab at his searing, blockbusting best.

Bravo Two Zero

In January 1991, eight members of the SAS regiment embarked upon a top secret mission that was to infiltrate them deep behind enemy lines. Under the command of Sergeant Andy McNab, they were to sever the underground communication link between Baghdad and north-west Iraq, and to seek and destroy mobile Scud launchers. Their call sign: Bravo Two Zero. Each man laden with 15 stone of equipment, they patrolled 20km across flat desert to reach their objective. Within days, their location was compromised. After a fierce firefight, they were forced to escape and evade on foot to the Syrian border. In the desperate days that followed, though stricken by hypothermia and other injuries, the patrol "went ballistic". Four men were captured. Three died. Only one escaped. For the survivors, however, the worst ordeals were to come. Delivered to Baghdad, they were tortured with a savagery for which not even their intensive SAS training had prepared them. "Bravo Two Zero" is a account of Special Forces soldiering, a chronicle of superhuman courage, endurance and dark humour in the face of overwhelming odds. Believed to be the most highly decorated patrol since the Boer War, Bravo Two Zero is already part of SAS legend.

Immediate Action

In "Bravo Two Zero", Andy McNab gave an account of his experiences as commander of an SAS patrol behind enemy lines in Iraq. Now he tells the story of his life, from the day he was found in a Harrod's carrier bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital to the day he went to fight in the Gulf War. As a delinquent youth, McNab kicked against society; as a young soldier he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh; and as a member of 22 SAS Regiment he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years, on five continents. In this book he details his activities in a world of surveillance and intelligence-gathering, counter-terrorism and hostage rescue.