Andy McNab uses the experience he gained in 17 years in the British Army (including nine in the famed SAS) to bring reality to his Nick Stone series of novels, of which Silencer is the 15th.
The book opens in 1993 when Stone is sent to Colombia to kill the head of a drug cartel. Shielded by his wife, the drug boss presents a difficult target and Stone has to come face-to-face with him to fire the lethal shot.
In doing so he shows his face to the gangster’s son and wife but he thinks no more about it.
Now it’s Moscow 2012 and Stone and his girlfriend, Anna, are celebrating the premature birth of their first son in a state hospital which is a throwback to the communist era. The boy is ill and the couple calls in a friendly doctor to circumvent the system and initiate proper care for him
Then the doctor disappears and Stone finds himself in Hong Kong as the guest of a Triad organ harvesting operation which is a money laundering setup for … you guessed it, the Colombian drug cartel whose current bosses remember his face very well.
For the uninitiated, Stone’s background reads almost like a McNab autobiography in that he is the product of a harsh upbringing which finds a home in the army and the SAS, and in Silencer he needs to use all his SAS skills to track the damsel in distress and rescue her.
McNab does not skimp on the skiet and donner in this read which is a nice addition to the Nick Stone collection