Crisis: the action-packed Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller

£4.995
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Crisis: the action-packed Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller

Crisis: the action-packed Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller

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Price: £4.995
£4.995 FREE Shipping

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Crisis is the first non-fiction work by Frank Gardner, and as befits his day job of BBC Security Correspondent he has chosen a spy thriller as the genre for his debut novel. It probably helps that I massively respect Frank Gardner already, but it was incredibly believable, gripping and very well written. Oh, and I HATED how the girlfriend had been written - whiney Sloane Ranger one minute; kick-arse, kidnap escaping martial expert the next.

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I bought this book, but with the name of Frank Gardner attached I was probably expecting more. The book is peppered with excessive detail, unnecessary exposition and minor characters who could be excised entirely.This is the first of currently three books about Luke Carlton and I have to admit I really enjoyed it. Introducing Luke Carlton – ex-Special Boat Service commando and now under contract to MI6 for some of its most dangerous missions. After the bomb is contained and the explosives expert says of our stale hero, "Wow, whoever got the intel for this op must be one hell of a guy. If Ultimatum is even 80% similar to Crisis, though, I will give up 75% through, just as I wanted to at multiple points during Crisis. The action swings back and forth between London and Colombia as the story moves to a thrilling climax.

The second Luke Carlton thriller, Ultimatum, was also a Sunday Times top 10 bestseller, as was the third, Outbreak.Its a shame therefore, that such details are wasted on a plot that never feels entirely credible, lead characters who are either bland, misconceived or one dimensional and some very questionable decisions regarding both pacing of the story and individual dramatic developments. With excellent characters, a modern and realistic outlook to our current world and solid plotting and pacing, I thought this was an exceptional spy/thriller style of story and I am eager to read the author’s next offering. Instead we get Luke Carlton, and instead of complexity we are given what can best be described as bland competence. Against all expectations, he survived and, in 2006, published his acclaimed and bestselling memoir, Blood and Sand. I thought the ending was poor after all the build up but, I do think that I will read the follow up 'Ultimatum' and continue the Luke Carlton adventures.

I suspect I'm not really the target audience for this book but I like a good thriller so thought I'd give it a go. I also enjoyed the fact that Luke’s personal history was where a lot of his talents lay – having spent much of his childhood in South America it made sense he knew the local scenes, customs and languages very well.Very much in the vein of McNab and Ryan and while Mr Gardner may not be as expert on weapons and tactics he does the bigger picture stuff very well. He uses jargon freely, but then realises that his readers may not understand the jargon and has to explain it. For those of you who do not know, Frank was severely wounded in an Al Qaeda attack in Yemen in 2004 – his cameraman was killed, and he was left for dead with eleven bullets in him. Unfortunately by introducing her and then finding ways to shoehorn her into the plot, all Gardner does is slow down the narrative unnecessarily, add yet another unrealistic and ultimately superfluous, yet entirely predictable, subplot (from the moment in the opening chapters that you find out Elise knows martial arts you’re just waiting for her to be placed in a situation where she needs to use them) and irritate the reader.

I'll end with a question I kept being plagued with while reading this novel: in a world that already has Frederick Forsyth, why would I settle for anything that's LIKE Frederick Forsyth? Drawing on his years of experience reporting on security matters, CRISIS is Frank Gardner’s debut novel. It does seem to go on a bit longer than needs be but it is so action packed and enjoyable that you don't mind too much.Honestly, if she had said ‘Babes’ one more time in a way that no real woman outside of The Only Way Is Essex actually would I would have screamed. A fluent Arabist, with a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies, he was previously the BBC's Middle East Correspondent based in Cairo, and before that in Dubai. The only bit of the plot I didn’t find far fetched was the idea of smuggling a weapon of mass destruction into the UK.



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