Crisis Four [Mass Market Paperback]

Andy McNab (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2001

He was ordered to track down a rogue colleague. Now British Intelligence agent Nick Stone and "runner" (and former lover) Sarah Greenwood have become the hunted, racing deeper into a dark, deadly conspiracy that will change the course of world events - and the lives of millions.

With seventeen years of active service in the elite SAS force, Andy McNab writes from his own harrowing experiences. Packed with authentic procedural details, as relentless as a fast-burning fuse, Crisis Four is a thriller so gritty and real that you won't know where fact ends and fiction begins.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Andy McNab's British intelligence agent, Nick Stone, is enough of a rebel to be denied a permanent place on the SAS roster, but he's dragooned into a freelance assignment with an ultimatum from his former employers. He's to find Sarah Greenwood, a missing agent who's thought to have defected from the service to aid Muslim militants intent on blowing up the world, or go to prison and also lose the only other female he's ever loved besides Sarah: a 9-year-old girl whose dead parents, Nick's closest friends, left her in his care.

Nick manages to locate Sarah without much difficulty, but when he's ordered to kill her, he has a change of heart. The hunter turns into the hunted, as Nick and Sarah flee her hiding place in the North Carolina woods and try to outwit the police, the intelligence services, and a team of assassins directed by Osama bin Laden. As they make their way to Washington to preempt a plan to kill Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu, Nick tries to sort out his conflicted feelings about Sarah. Is she part of bin Laden's team, a so-called runner who's a threat to the CIA and the SAS, or is she a loyal operative trying to outwit a highly placed traitor in the White House? Crisis Four is strong on its depiction of agents in the field; McNab excels at describing every last detail of the hunt, the chase, the kill. One can almost see this former SAS agent replaying scenes from his own past and struggling to get them right:

I raised the arrow in the air again and rammed it down hard. It hit against the bone again, but this time it slid off and lodged deeper into his neck. I felt him stiffen, his muscle tensing up to resist the penetration. The gardening glove gave a good grip as I pushed harder, twisting the arrow shaft to maximize the damage. I was hoping to cut into his carotid artery or spinal cord, or even find a gap to penetrate his cranium, but instead I ended up severing his windpipe. Now I had to hold him as he asphyxiated, try to stop his body-jerking from getting out of hand and becoming noisy as I waited for him to die. His movements gradually subsided to no more than a spasmodic twitching in his legs. The last reserve of strength he'd found as he saw his life slowly get darker was now exhausted. I could see dark blood oozing out of the wound; it followed along the shaft of the arrow to my glove and dripped onto the floor. When I moved my arm away from his mouth he made no sound.

The explosive denouement in the White House bowling alley ultimately reveals Sarah's true colors. It comes as no surprise to anyone except Nick, but it caps a terrific suspense story written by an author who clearly knows what he's about. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

A little knowledge is a dangerous thingDand a little knowledge is all freelance operative Nick Stone gets when he's ordered to track down a missing colleague in McNab's gripping follow-up to the British bestseller Remote Control. It's the spring of 1998, and Stone is on the trail of Sarah Greenwood, who's disappeared from her counter-terrorism stint in Washington just before Arafat and Netanyahu are scheduled to meet with President Clinton in the capital. It doesn't help that Stone's affair with Sarah (which was all business on Sarah's part) was responsible for the end of his marriage, or that Sarah herself is a real piece of work. When Stone finds Sarah, he discovers that his superiors not only want the trigger-happy operative dead, they want her to disappear without a trace. But Sarah claims she has information that could stop an Osama Bin Laden-sponsored terrorist strike on the White House that would kill the American, Palestinian and Israeli leaders. As a result, Stone must choose whether to obey orders or to believe his ex-lover. The plot is simple and direct, and McNab's talent for setting up a scene becomes evident when Stone tracks Sarah to North Carolina. His stakeout of her house would occupy a few pages if described by a less-skilled writer, but McNab goes deep into detail, transforming the set piece into virtual reality. McNab, a former Special Air Service member, delivers authenticity in spades; this thriller is full of the kind of grit that gets under the fingernails. His nonfiction bestseller, Bravo Two Zero, which tells the story of what happened to his SAS patrol when it was stranded behind Iraqi lines during the Gulf War, reads like a prologue to this novel, which boasts the operational details of a Rogue Warrior escapade without the overdose of testosterone. Major ad/promo. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (August 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345428080
• ISBN-13: 978-0345428080
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,895,788 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as Remote Control, August 1, 2000

By 

P. Elkin "phil4000" (Frisco, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crisis Four (Hardcover)

First things first. I absolutely loved Remote Control. I scanned Amazon regularly to see when Andy McNab's next book was out and ordered it the day it appeared. I put down another book the minute Crisis Four showed up.

Now that I've read it, I'm a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong - it's not bad. It just pales in comparison to Remote Control.

Oh, sure, most of the action will knock you out of your chair (two insanely great scenes - clearing the lake house and the pursuit through the woods). The tradecraft has an authentic feel to it. The characters are a bit less flat than Remote Control.

So why the disappointment? The components are all there, but they don't add up to a very exciting whole. McNab is an entertaining writer, once he gets going. It's just that the basic premise of this story is not all that compelling.

In addition, the characters, while a little bit less flat than Remote Control's, are also less interesting. Sarah is not very sympathetic. Lynn and Elizabeth are barely there. Josh is just a sap. Compare these characters to Slack Pat and Euan - there might not have been much detail to them, but they were memorable.

So, bottom line: Crisis Four is pretty good. It's not as good as Remote Control. Even still, I look forward to the next adventure of Nick Stone.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 star fiction - or fact!, July 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Crisis Four (Hardcover)

Just finished the brilliant Crisis Four - can anyone help me with this - it's writen so convincingly, every detail seems real - it makes me wonder, did this, or something like this, really happen to Andy McNab?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Details, details, details, November 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Crisis Four (Mass Market Paperback)

Welcome to the gloomy side of special operations. A world of detailed tradecraft, freezing rain and icy mud, cheap motels, and junk food. If you thought spec ops was glamorous, why it's time you met Andy McNab, working class operator.

McNab's novels are the mirror opposite of Marcinko's or Clancy's. No sass, no high level meetings with world leaders, no tech whizbang. McNab is the Johnny Paycheck of spec ops, all working-class fieldcraft, full of grit and authentic-sounding detail.

Kept in the dark by his superiors, surrounded by sell-outs, and a few thin paychecks away from trouble, McNab's hired gun character can rely only upon his disciplined SAS tradecraft to stay alive and in the game.

As dark as all this sounds, there is much to learn from McNab's hero, Nick Stone.

The man's sanity is rooted in his ability to get on with things, no matter what. His training, his practical skills, and his courage enable him to get past even the most extreme adversities, without despairing or getting sentimental. He does get banged up but he stays focused on the mission.

Also, McNab's novels are refreshingly devoid of Rambo heroism, but long on authentic-sounding teachings -- from outdoor survival tricks to emergency first aid, it's all here in minute and gory detail. If only McNab's plots were on a par with his tactical knowhow ...