We're twenty years or so into the future and the world is desperately short of oil. Trouble always follows such a situation. There are energy shortages, economies are contracting and the threat from terrorism is constant. The CIA and the FBI were amalgamated some time ago and agent Scott Pierce of the FSA is hunting the man known as The Spider. He's been in deep cover - including a prison sentence - but this isn't just work to him. The Spider was responsible for the Eurostar bombing which cost Pierce his wife and he's determined to see the man dead. The fact that The Spider is determined to strike at the heart of America's democratic institutions and bring her to her knees is almost secondary.
| Battalion by Adam Hamdy | |
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| Category: Thrillers | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: Set some twenty years into the future it's an actioned-packed story of a world split by strife and short on energy. It's great escapist fiction. Adam Hamdy popped into Bookbag Towers to chat to us. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 292 | Date: October 2012 |
| Publisher: Dare Books | |
| ISBN: 978-0956502008 | |
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Wow. Just wow. Do you need me to say any more? You'd like me to elaborate?
If you enjoy thrillers and particularly espionage thrillers then this book has been written for you. You're going to hit the ground running on the first page and there's no way that you're going to relax until you turn the final page. Forget the idea of long pages where you're told the background and what's going on: you'll have no problems at all picking it up as you go along. Lots of things have changed between now and then, but we've been pretty cavalier about energy and this is only what's to be expected, with cities in near darkness, power - even power for transport - from sources we'd be unlikely to countenance in the second decade of the twenty-first century and mercenaries providing the security for major cities. It's a future you can believe in all too readily.
I believed in Scott Pierce too. I was expecting the stereotypical action man but what emerged was very much more three-dimensional. In much the same way that Ian Rankin has no need to describe Rebus for us to have a clear picture of him in our minds, Adam Hamdy brings Pierce off the page with little in the way of description and appeals to the imagination in ways that mere statistics could never do. There's a good and extensive supporting cast, but make no mistake, Scott Pierce dominates and it all rolled out on the big screen in my mind.
It did look as though this was going to be a book for the boys and normally they don't appeal to me at all, but the politics of what was happening pulled me in and wouldn't let me go. It's great, escapist story telling and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd like to thank the author for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
If this book appeals to you then we think that you might also enjoy [[ An American Spy by Olen Steinhauer]].
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Adam Hamdy was kind enough to be interviewed by Bookbag.
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