From Publishers Weekly
Former British SAS agent Nick Stone sets his sights on al-Qaida in his fifth adventure (after Last Light), a search-and-capture mission weighed down by excessive detail and a numbing lack of action. Stone, now working for a special antiterrorist U.S. strike team, is assigned to the south of France to choke off al-Qaida's money line. Stone has taken the job reluctantly. He wants to retire, but the CIA has promised him U.S. citizenship and a new life with the woman he loves if he completes the task. On arrival in Cannes, Stone hooks up with two Egyptian sidekicks, and the trio begin tracking down the so-called hawalla, the secret network of underground bankers who finance terrorist operations and compensate the families of those who die in the cause. Specifically, Stone's job is to kidnap three of the bankers and whisk them to a U.S. warship just off the French coast, where they will be interrogated and forced to reveal the origin and destination of their money. As is his custom, Stone takes the beating of his life, but perseveres in the face of overwhelming odds. McNab, a British special forces member for more than a decade, is at his best when the action gets hairy, as it finally does toward the end. Too much of his latest, however, is spent following Stone through the mundane details of mission preparation-staking out locations, following suspects, ruminating about possible scenarios. Instead of biting their nails, readers will be staring at them absently, bored by the colorless plot.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Description
The brilliant new bestseller from the author of
Last Light.
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 Islamic 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 he doesn’t want to know. He just guesses it’s got something to do with the democratic world’s retaliation to the terrible events of September 11th.
But as events unfold alarmingly fast, Stone realizes that he has not been told the full story -- and that in reality the job has only just begun.
Operating in the dangerous underworld of the south of France, where al-Qaeda has begun to regroup, Stone is knee-deep in a very dirty war. In the most daunting mission he has yet undertaken, as one bloody twist leads to another, Stone ultimately finds himself confronted by the most desperate dilemma a man could ever face.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.