Last Light: A Nick Stone Mission

Just another in a great series, I love all the Nick Stone books by Andy McNab. The best action/adventure writer around today.

... produce in a lifetime. Mr. McNab's SAS training and the degree to which he absorbed it and can recreate that type of thinking on the page combine to make a nearly unparalleled reading experience. His protagonists are far more capable, observant, knowledgeable, experienced, and (his term) switched-on than any I've met in other books. There is simply no comparison between how Nick Stone here sees, thinks, and works, and how your average thriller author imagines it might go. Last Light is so dense with pure thought, planning, detail, and tradecraft that I could hardly point to an outstanding passage. It's all good. That people like Mr. McNab exist and can do what he describes so expertly is astonishing. Thanks so much for putting this on paper, Mr. McNab. And by the way - you and your mates are awesome. Glad you're in our camp. Having said all that, this book does suffer from plot super-sizing. Just as in Crisis Four, Mr. McNab creates a huge conspiracy within which his agent thrashes around, and which the author simply can't resolve. It's too bad because if he just crafted the story of some mission without global complications it would be a jewel. As it is, Last Light abruptly ends in confused mid-plot. Why can't Nick be on a legit SAS mission instead of having it all forced out of him by the powers that be? And the backstory of Kelly, which I suppose is there to make Nick more of a person (and to provide plot hooks) soon becomes tiresome. I'm not interested in Nick Stone as a struggling surrogate father - but I'll be reading every page I can find describing him in the field. It's just too good to miss. An added benny of Mr. McNab's writing is that you get some thoughtful and highly observant commentary on the environments in which his agent moves. Last Light taught me a lot about Panama and the Canal situation. The downside to his books is that you can't face another action novel for a while, because you know that even a good one will be dishwater next to this.

Not the most action packed of the Nick Stone books, but I think it's the best. We finally get to see Nick Stone become human and have human reactions. In the other Nick Stone books, he is a bit of a super solider but in Last Light we get a glimpse of the real man. It's well written and the plot twists aren't predictable. I definitely enjoyed it.

Another great read from Andy McNab, I read this one in 3 days ,and it was a great read , a little slower then the other Nick Stone's. but still good none the less , looking forward to Liberation Day.

It really doesn't get any better than Andy McNab when it comes to military fiction. McNab, a pseudonym of a former SAS soldier, packs so much realism into his stories that the reader can't help but wonder how much is fiction and how much is gleaned from his real life experiences. He uses terminology and phrasing that makes the reader feel as if they are former Regiment themselves, all while weaving a tense and compelling story. This is the type of book that you'll start, and before you know it, you're a hundred pages in. Last Light is episode four in the Nick Stone series. The action begins on the first page and the reader is instantly pulled into the story. Stone is sent to command a sniper team that is to carry out an assassination of a target at the British parliament. At the last second, Stone realizes that something is very wrong and aborts the mission. He has been set up, but he has an insurance policy that saves his life. However, those who sent him on the mission use Kelly, his 'daughter' (readers who have read the previous McNab books will understand the quotes) to force him to once again attempt to follow his target to Panama and eliminate him by "last light Friday." Rarely does a book capture the intricacies of individual combat and the technical aspects of both military equipment and tactics so well without losing the flow of the action or interrupting the plot. Such details are so familiar to McNab that they are poured effortlessly into the story without so much as a hiccup. The author does not bother himself with the politics of conflict or large scale ramifications in the manner of a Clancy or a Stephen Coonts - what he gives you is action, raw and authentic.I highly recommend Last Light as well as the other Nick Stone books - Remote Control, Crisis Four, and Firewall. It is not imperative that they are read in order, but if you want to get a feel for the development of the main character, it would help. Also, read Immediate Action for the non-fiction account of the author's SAS career as well as the EXCELLENT Bravo Two Zero for the story of his team's capture and subsequent torture in Iraq during the gulf war.