Better than (insert title here) or your money back!

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	• Remote Control Andy McNab, 1999 average customer review:based on 64 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Better than (insert title here) or your money back!

Recently, I acquired a copy of the Stephen Leather thriller, Hot Blood (A Dan Shepherd Mystery), which had on its front cover a sticker that screamed "Better than Andy McNab or your money back". Leather's ongoing fictional hero, Dan "Spider" Shepherd, is a former member of the SAS now working for an ultra-secret undercover unit of London's Metropolitan Police. Nick Stone, the protagonist making his initial appearance here in McNab's first novel, REMOTE CONTROL, is an ex-SAS trooper now working for MI6. What, do Leather and McNab have a mano-a-mano thing going? (I don't ever remember seeing a Dean Koontz release with the claim, "King writes dross; read my stuff.") When queried by me, Stephen said that his publisher suggested the ploy. But, since I did end up buying REMOTE CONTROL, perhaps the point is to sell more books from both.

Here, Stone is tasked by his SIS controller to follow two hard IRA boyos to Washington, DC, to see what mischief they're up to. Once comfortable in his hotel room, Nick is almost immediately recalled home. But, before catching the next plane back across The Pond, Stone decides to visit old SAS pal Kev, now working for the DEA. Arriving at Kev's suburban home, Nick discovers his buddy bludgeoned to death and his wife and one of two daughters with their throats cut. Stone find's the second daughter, 7-year old Kelly, cowering in a hidey-hole. Realizing that Kelly saw the killers and her life is now in peril, and that he himself may become a suspect in the bloodbath, Stone grabs the girl and runs. Over the remainder of the book, our hero must discover the identity of the murderers, protect Kelly, and get both of them to safety in England where his boss, Simmonds, will certainly sort things out.

For a first novel, REMOTE CONTROL is better than average. McNab's personal tour of duty with the SAS imparts a patina of realism to the actions of his Stone character. Indeed, Nick is a Tough Guy in somewhat the same vein as author Lee Child's ex-Army MP, Jack Reacher. At one point in a desperate, hand-to-hand struggle with a Bad Guy over control of a pistol, Stone must essentially chew the man's face apart. Somehow, I don't see Leather's hero doing anything so messy.

One of the criticism's I've made of the Dan Shepherd series is the fact that Spider's young son Liam is trotted out as a prop in every installment to re-emphasize that widower Shepherd is otherwise a warm, decent, family man whose day job takes him to the world's hard and grotty edges. In REMOTE CONTROL, Kelly also starts out as a prop. But, by the conclusion, she plays an integral, nail-biting, and very satisfying part. I see from plot summaries that Kelly also appears in follow-up volumes of the Nick Stone series, so I've gone ahead and ordered the second out of curiosity to see where McNab takes the character.

The drawbacks to REMOTE CONTROL are that we've seen the scenario before in books and films - adult and child flee a deadly conspiracy hand-in-hand - and, well before the end, the coming betrayal twist becomes all to obvious.

By profession, Stephen Leather is a journalist who's lived all over the world. McNab - a pseudonym ostensibly to protect his identity from vengeful terrorists left over from his bad old SAS days - continues to work with intelligence organizations on both sides of the Atlantic. I suspect, therefore, that Andy's books will be more realistic in the finer points, while Stephen's will show a wider scope of imagination. In any case, both are excellent British authors creating some very entertaining reads.

Hey, Stephen and Andy, why don't you both co-author a thriller in which both Dan and Nick appear? The potential for a friendly, or not so friendly, rivalry between the two heroes is almost too good to pass up.

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Not bad for a first time out

Alright, I knew "who dunnit" pretty early on, but it was still a fun read. Mr. McNab for obvious reasons brought a great deal of verismilitude to the story. I'll definitely be picking up more of his fiction.

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Great book Andy!

this Book is his best one so far i think, it was very hard for me to put it down and i think it's a very exciting read and andy has a great story once more and the more the book advances you are wondering how the book will end, very good job Andy!

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Few writers know the intricate landscape of special operations like Andy McNab. A member of the crack elite force the Special Air Service for seventeen years, McNab saw duty all over the world--and was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he resigned in 1993.

Now, in Remote Control, his explosive fiction debut, McNab has drawn on his personal experience and unique knowledge to create a thriller of gripping authenticity, high-stakes intrigue, and unstoppable action.

After his mission is suddenly terminated in Washington, D.C., British Intelligence agent Nick Stone decides to visit an old colleague, Kev Brown. But when Stone arrives at his friend's eerily quiet suburban home, he discovers a chilling scene of carnage. Every member of the Brown family has been brutally slaughtered except one: seven-year-old Kelly Brown. His instincts on red alert and adrenaline in overdrive, Stone grabs the girl and runs--with anonymous assassins in hot pursuit. But whom do they wish to silence: Stone, the innocent child, or both?

During a heart-pounding chase that takes the resourceful, sometimes ruthless seasoned pro and his frightened young charge from Washington to Florida, and across the Atlantic to England, Stone begins to piece together a shocking global conspiracy. Thrust into a lethal game of cat-and-mouse, Stone is certain of two things: He and Kelly are on their own. No one can be trusted. And his darkest fears about the shadowy link between politics, money, and terrorism are about to be realized.

Combining relentless action, daring escapes, and breathless plotting with chillingly authentic operational detail rarely seen in thrillers, Remote Control is a novel so real and so suspenseful it sets a new standard for the genre.

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