- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday Canada (Aug 22 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385259867
- ISBN-13: 978-0385259866
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 635 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,398,717 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
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 --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
A little knowledge is a dangerous thingDand a little knowledge is all freelance operative Nick Stone gets when he's ordered to track down a missing colleague in McNab's gripping follow-up to the British bestseller Remote Control. It's the spring of 1998, and Stone is on the trail of Sarah Greenwood, who's disappeared from her counter-terrorism stint in Washington just before Arafat and Netanyahu are scheduled to meet with President Clinton in the capital. It doesn't help that Stone's affair with Sarah (which was all business on Sarah's part) was responsible for the end of his marriage, or that Sarah herself is a real piece of work. When Stone finds Sarah, he discovers that his superiors not only want the trigger-happy operative dead, they want her to disappear without a trace. But Sarah claims she has information that could stop an Osama Bin Laden-sponsored terrorist strike on the White House that would kill the American, Palestinian and Israeli leaders. As a result, Stone must choose whether to obey orders or to believe his ex-lover. The plot is simple and direct, and McNab's talent for setting up a scene becomes evident when Stone tracks Sarah to North Carolina. His stakeout of her house would occupy a few pages if described by a less-skilled writer, but McNab goes deep into detail, transforming the set piece into virtual reality. McNab, a former Special Air Service member, delivers authenticity in spades; this thriller is full of the kind of grit that gets under the fingernails. His nonfiction bestseller, Bravo Two Zero, which tells the story of what happened to his SAS patrol when it was stranded behind Iraqi lines during the Gulf War, reads like a prologue to this novel, which boasts the operational details of a Rogue Warrior escapade without the overdose of testosterone. Major ad/promo. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
An action hero who is so real it's scary,
By "curtcow" (Short Hills, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Crisis Four (Mass Market Paperback)
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.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Spooky reading after 9/11,
By A Customer
This review is from: Crisis Four (Hardcover)
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.
2.0 out of 5 stars
A good plot ruined by slang and expletives,
By
This review is from: Crisis Four (Mass Market Paperback)
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.
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