- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday Canada (Feb 17 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385257163
- ISBN-13: 978-0385257169
- Shipping Weight: 789 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,398,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Don't expect to see Andy McNab's photograph on the cover of his first thriller, Remote Control--the former British Special Air Service agent says both the Colombian drug cartel and the Provisional IRA still have contracts out on him. His two nonfiction books, Bravo Two Zero and Immediate Action, give more detail about his prolific past.
Remote Control is the fictional story of an SAS agent named Nick Stone, who is on the case of two Irish terrorists. He follows them across the Atlantic to Washington, D.C., but is suddenly ordered back home on the next available flight. His old mate Kevin Brown, now with the Drug Enforcement Agency, lives near the airport, so Nick decides to drop in. He finds a slaughterhouse: Kev, his wife, and youngest daughter have been battered to death, but daughter Kelly has survived in a special hideout. Prying information from the shocked child, Nick links the killers to either the CIA, the DEA, or his own organization--which means that he and Kelly are virtually on their own. As Nick trundles the spunky youngster from one seedy motel to another, stuffs her with junk food, and teaches her the rudiments of spy craft, he also begins to piece together a picture of why Kevin and his family were killed. There is a connection between a terrorist bomb scare in Gibraltar in 1988, the Colombian drug cartel, and high-level intelligence-agency skullduggery. McNab keeps dropping those shiny nuggets of believability along the trail and winds up holding our attention until the predictable but satisfying end. --Dick Adler
From Publishers Weekly
A rogue Special Air Service agent on the lam in suburban America with the seven-year-old daughter of a murdered colleague. Sounds like the latest Bruce Willis vehicle, costarring that little girl from the Pepsi commercials. But McNab, a former SAS agent himself and author of two nonfiction books on the subject, manages to balance the clich?s and cuteness with large doses of tradecraft taken from his 17 years of undercover experience. When Nick Stone describes how to maintain a fictitious address or reveals the secrets of tracing a call made from a public telephone, the details ring trueAand help get us over some of the more ludicrous speed bumps in his story. Stone, tracking two Irish terrorists from London to Washington, is suddenly ordered back home on the next available flight. His old mate Kevin Brown, now with the Drug Enforcement Agency, lives nearby, so Nick decides to drop in. He finds a slaughterhouse: Kev, his wife, and youngest daughter have been murdered, but daughter Kelly has survived in a special hideout. Prying information from the shocked child, Stone links the killers to either the CIA, the DEA or his own organizationAwhich means that he and Kelly are on the run from everybody. As Nick trundles the spunky youngster from one seedy motel to another, stuffs her with junk food and teaches her the rudiments of espionage, he puts together a picture of why Kevin and his family were killedAa connection between a terrorist bomb scare in Gibraltar in 1988, the Colombian drug cartel and high-level intelligence agency skullduggery. The vast network of sinister collaborations isn't startling, but McNab reliably delivers the believable, real-life details and keeps readers' attention with steady, careful prose until the predictable but satisfying end. (June) FYI: Remote Control was the number one bestseller in London's Sunday Times for seven weeks. Because of McNab's SAS involvement, and his wanted status by several terrorist groups, he makes no public appearances.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
THE VISIT THAT WENT WRONG,
By david wilcox (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Remote Control (Mass Market Paperback)
This exciting book about a man called Nick Stone. He is sent on a mission to follow two irish suspects. Everything was going swimmingly untill he went to his friends house... A great book with ups and downs a plenty. An exciting read with plenty of action yet not so much it ruins the book. A great book to read on journeys.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The anti-Tom Clancy,
By Smithroz "smithroz" (Western NC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Remote Control (Mass Market Paperback)
In a situation where Tom Clancy would waste five pages of techno-weenie jargon explaining exactly how a motion detector works, former SAS sergeant Andy McNab writes a few short sentences on how to beat one. McNab's main character, Nick Stone, describes himself as a 38 year old man with a lot on his mind and not much in it. Nothing ever goes quite as Nick plans and the results are thrilling, often quite funny and sometimes more than a little sad. If you are looking for a book to take along on a trip to read at the airport or on plane, this one would be tops. A fast read that makes killing time enjoyable.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not great, but not bad,
By "smokey_joe" (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Remote Control (Mass Market Paperback)
After reading McNab's "Bravo Two Zero" and "Immediate Action," I thought I'd give his fiction a try. Overall this book is entertaining, with more action than recent vintage Clancy novels. The action is often quite intense and, in those moments, it is a real page turner. The technical and tradecraft details are what really make this book. McNab, or course, is all the more believable in these areas due to his personal experiences as relayed in his non-fiction work. He buys a credibility there that Clancy, et al. just can't match. Worth reading for that fact alone. While the story is good and the details better, the writing itself is sometimes clumsy. Maybe this is nitpicking, since the reality is that the writing somehow seems to "fit" the story (you wouldn't want Steinbeck or Hemingway telling the story, would you?). However, I suspect that the writing is simply due to first novel syndrome (I had no complaints about his writing in Bravo Two Zero), and would expect this to improve in future works. Although I only gave the book 3 stars, I'll definitely keep McNab on my "read" list.
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