Andy McNab, Liberation Day

Andy McNab's fictional alter-ego is back in this follow up from the novel "Last Light."

It is now November 2001. About 12 months has passed since the last novel. Stone has not only left MI6, he's also fallen in love with Carrie, the woman he met in Last Light (whose husband was killed). Stone wants a new life in the USA with Carrie. Her father is George, a senior officer in the CIA who has been involved with joint MI6/CIA ops for a while. He makes Stone an offer: do one last job for the CIA and you get a US passport and the intelligence community will leave you alone.

This op is a violent one (the description of which may disgust some people). Stone returns to find out there is no such thing as "one last job" where the CIA is concerned. He visits Stone, reveals to Carrie to reveal Stone wasn't working as a holiday rep as he claimed. And, he has another job for Stone

Once again, we get another highly detailed action thriller, concerning money laundering and Middle Eastern terrorists (it was written in the weeks following 9/11). This plot was an imaginative one, but I wonder if it was initially planned as a plot involving drug money, which McNab changed and modified to fit in with world events. Still, I don't care - again the novel was excellent.

Stone is still a pitiful loser. He is desperate for a new life, having lost his childhood to a bullying stepfather and his adulthood to the SAS. What I like about this guy is that he's not a half-Scottish, half-Swiss Eton graduate who lives in Chelsea and drives an Aston-Martin. He's a troubled, depressed man who can't escape his life. He gets used by his masters time and time again and never learns. He pops painkillers so readily he could almost be addicted; he has no hope to speak of, and yet keeps going. This guy isn't James Bond. He's a very troubled ordinary man to whom so many real life problems apply. That's why, as a reader, I can't help but like the man. He's ordinary.

Stone's final act is hinted at early on in the novel. You'll probably spot it. Again, we get very realistic sounding descriptions which are very much McNab's trademark (just don't try the washing-up liquid trick mentioned in the early chapters). We get two interesting characters, Lotfi and "Hubba-Hubba," who become close allies of Stone). Everything is again believable. One of the most memorable parts is when Stone is escaping after a severe beating. He doesn't just get up, dust himself off and keep pushing on - he has cracked ribs, can't breathe or see clearly, and has to drive with a terrorist in similar shape in the boot of a car. The whole thing is very realistic sounding.

This book is another brilliant offering from Andy "Bravo-Two-Zero" McNab. If action thrillers are your thing, put "Liberation Day" on your Wish List.