Firewall FROM THE PUBLISHER
If he hadn't needed the cash so badly, Nick Stone would never have messed with the Russian mafia. But the lucrative offer was one he couldn't refuse. The job seemed simple enough for a man of his particular talents: kidnap a ruthless, money-laundering mob boss from his fortified Helsinki hotel room and deliver him to St. Petersburg. But as the plan begins to unfold, Stone soon realizes that by no means has he been told the full story.
Catapulted into the bleak underworld of the former Soviet republic of Estonia, where unknown aggressors stalk the arctic landscape, Stone finds that the mob may now turn out to be the least of his problems. Russia has embarked on a new Cold War offensive—hacking into the West's computer systems and stealing their most coveted military secrets. As one bloody double cross leads to another, Stone finds himself caught between the suicidal schemes of the British and American intelligence agencies and the ruthless Russians who want to silence him.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
After cash-hungry Nick Stone agrees to pry a Russian mob boss from his fortified hotel room in Helsinki and drag him back to St. Petersburg, he finds himself in the middle of a Russian offensive to relaunch the Cold War. McNab, the author of best sellers like Remote Control, is a former member of the British SAS who, the publicity proudly proclaims, is still wanted by terrorists and must keep his whereabouts a secret. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
AudioFile
Listening to Clive Mantle's reading of this international thriller is like watching a Michael Caine/Harry Palmer movie--only it's even more exciting. That's because Mantle is a Michael Caine sound-alike, and when his principal character, Nick Stone, goes into action, one thinks of Harry Palmer. Stone, an ex-SAS operative working for British Intelligence on a contract basis, just cannot stay out of trouble. In order to make some extra money for a noble cause, Stone gets involved in a botched kidnapping, which leads him into a conspiracy. Mantle's South-London accent suitably portrays Stone, and his foreign characters are totally believable. McNab's latest, with Mantle's addition, is a cliff-hanger from beginning to end. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
A sweet one. McNab writes like a dream, having produced fiction (Remote Control and Crisis Four, neither reviewed) and nonfiction about Britain's Special Air Service. He retired in 1993 as the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier. Nick Stone, McNab's stand-in, has a rich backstory by now: His nine-year-old adoptive daughter's mental troubles cost him $4,000 weekly, and he must survive the Firm's black view of his debacles at the White House and elsewhere. So he takes on a bloody task that at first looks easy: to set up a snatch in Helsinki and bring a visiting Russian Mafia kingpin to St. Petersburg. Should he slip up, ROC (Russian Organized Crime) will treat him to Viking's Revenge—disembowelment, with his innards squirming on his chest for him to mull over during his half hour spent dying. The kingpin, Valentin Lebed, and other ROC members launder £20 billion yearly through London banks, and some London banking execs want Val shipped off to St. Petersburg, where he can be persuaded to make even sweeter deals with them. McNab's wiser fans, feeling slightly above the low mental power of Nick's Russian helpmates, will soon foresee a tangle-footed, ruinous orgy in the kidnap. Or as Nick thinks, "Basically, I accepted that I was going to die, and anything beyond that was a bonus." As always, the snatch goes bad—very bad—and Nick winds up changing teams when offered a London payoff from Lebed, now his vastly wealthy prisoner. In London, Lebed pays him $100 trillion, then hires him to get a hacker into a Finnish house to download a "commercial" program for a payoff of an additional $3 million in a Luxembourg account. The program? Well, it's the"Echelon dictionaries," McNab's Maltese Falcon. Throat-clutching action, authentic scenarios, spectacular precision. Death zings its old sweet song as slugs sing off your Kevlar.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
A great read by a writer who has walked the walk. Firewall has it all: suspense, high adventure, gripping story, and it explodes like a stun grenade. McNab, a former Special Air Service pro, has used his exciting SAS background to spin a story that's as real as fiction can be. McNab has hit the target again and makes Clancy look like a Sunday school teacher who moonlights as an adventure writer. Couldn't put the sucker down. — (Colonel David H. Hackworth, author of the New York Times bestseller About Face, and The Price of Honor)
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