[.ca] Crisis Four (ISBN 0770428665)

From Amazon.com:
Andy McNab's British intelligence agent, Nick Stone, is enough of a rebel to be denied a permanent place on the SAS roster, but he's dragooned into a freelance assignment with an ultimatum from his former employers. He's to find Sarah Greenwood, a missing agent who's thought to have defected from the service to aid Muslim militants intent on blowing up the world, or go to prison and also lose the only other female he's ever loved besides Sarah: a 9-year-old girl whose dead parents, Nick's closest friends, left her in his care. Nick manages to locate Sarah without much difficulty, but when he's ordered to kill her, he has a change of heart. The hunter turns into the hunted, as Nick and Sarah flee her hiding place in the North Carolina woods and try to outwit the police, the intelligence services, and a team of assassins directed by Osama bin Laden. As they make their way to Washington to preempt a plan to kill Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu, Nick tries to sort out his conflicted feelings about Sarah. Is she part of bin Laden's team, a so-called runner who's a threat to the CIA and the SAS, or is she a loyal operative trying to outwit a highly placed traitor in the White House? Crisis Four is strong on its depiction of agents in the field; McNab excels at describing every last detail of the hunt, the chase, the kill. One can almost see this former SAS agent replaying scenes from his own past and struggling to get them right: I raised the arrow in the air again and rammed it down hard. It hit against the bone again, but this time it slid off and lodged deeper into his neck. I felt him stiffen, his muscle tensing up to resist the penetration. The gardening glove gave a good grip as I pushed harder, twisting the arrow shaft to maximize the damage. I was hoping to cut into his carotid artery or spinal cord, or even find a gap to penetrate his cranium, but instead I ended up severing his windpipe. Now I had to hold him as he asphyxiated, try to stop his body-jerking from getting out of hand and becoming noisy as I waited for him to die. His movements gradually subsided to no more than a spasmodic twitching in his legs. The last reserve of strength he'd found as he saw his life slowly get darker was now exhausted. I could see dark blood oozing out of the wound; it followed along the shaft of the arrow to my glove and dripped onto the floor. When I moved my arm away from his mouth he made no sound. The explosive denouement in the White House bowling alley ultimately reveals Sarah's true colors. It comes as no surprise to anyone except Nick, but it caps a terrific suspense story written by an author who clearly knows what he's about. --Jane Adams

Spooky reading after 9/11:
I guess the author was more worried about bin Laden that our leaders (and the rest of us). I didn't start reading the book until after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. Once I got into the book I flipped back to front to see if it was written after the fact - nope, published in 2000. I had read Firewall previously and Crisis Four was about what I expected. It is a good read, but with some flaws. The main character can be far from the "Superman" lead in some books - in fact he some times makes so many mistakes that you figure that is why he is out of the service. Lots of detail from someone who seems to know which end is up. The ending leaves a bit to be desired. If you read the Amazon review, it will ruin the ending.

Details, details, details:
Welcome to the gloomy side of special operations. A world of detailed tradecraft, freezing rain and icy mud, cheap motels, and junk food. If you thought spec ops was glamorous, why it's time you met Andy McNab, working class operator. McNab's novels are the mirror opposite of Marcinko's or Clancy's. No sass, no high level meetings with world leaders, no tech whizbang. McNab is the Johnny Paycheck of spec ops, all working-class fieldcraft, full of grit and authentic-sounding detail. Kept in the dark by his superiors, surrounded by sell-outs, and a few thin paychecks away from trouble, McNab's hired gun character can rely only upon his disciplined SAS tradecraft to stay alive and in the game. As dark as all this sounds, there is much to learn from McNab's hero, Nick Stone. The man's sanity is rooted in his ability to get on with things, no matter what. His training, his practical skills, and his courage enable him to get past even the most extreme adversities, without despairing or getting sentimental. He does get banged up but he stays focused on the mission. Also, McNab's novels are refreshingly devoid of Rambo heroism, but long on authentic-sounding teachings -- from outdoor survival tricks to emergency first aid, it's all here in minute and gory detail. If only McNab's plots were on a par with his tactical knowhow ...

Crisis:
When I started reading this book, it sent shivers up my spine. Because I hadn't even looked at it, really, just got it out of curiosity. So I was shocked when it dealt with Osama bin Laden. And it was published in 1999, before the September 11th tradgedy (of 2001). It was a really good book, but eerily spooky.

An action hero who is so real it's scary:
Andy McNab is a former British Special Operations Agent who has written both fact and fiction. Nick Stone, McNab's alter ego of sorts, is sent to track down fellow counter terrorist agent and former lover Sarah Greenwood who is in the U.S. and may have gone to the other side. He goes to a redneck supply store and a WalMart to stock up for a night of recon and spots Sarah and an Arab looking dude coming out of a lakeside retreat the next day. I trust that McNab didn't do everything Nick Stone does, but his SAS Elite and most decorated Brit soldier background make Nick the most credible of the current genre of super agents. The human side of Nick the assassin, who is totally competent in the field yet so easily manipulated, and McNab's descriptions of the mundane details of surveillance and pursuit make Nick seem real. British slang and lingo unfamiliar to the reader create a crystal clear picture when spoken by Nick. On page 160 he's ordered to kill Sarah. Twenty-five pages later he's dragging her through the Carolina woods dodging choppers (helis), dogs and automatic weapons. The flaws in the plot match the flaws in Nick and balance out to a huge leg up on Ludlum, Clancy, Follett et al. It's also kind of cool that the title doesn't come into play until page 345. "Crisis Four" is one of four command posts in the White House where the good guys and the bad guys will ultimately sort out.

A good plot ruined by slang and expletives:
Andy McNab seems to have the details of special ops down, and the plot was superb. The characterization of Nick Stone is strong, and the story line is interesting. As my first introduction to McNab's writing, it was disappointing to see the text littered with so many unnecessary expletives and British slang. I'm no prude, but it was extremely distracting.