Ultimate Weapon

by Chris Ryan

Overview

The acclaimed author and Gulf War veteran delivers an "intricately plotted thriller" set in war-torn Iraq (Publishers Weekly).
Nick Scott fought with the SAS during the first Gulf War. Captured and tortured, he was left a broken man. His daughter Sarah is a beautiful young scientist at Cambridge University who appears to have cracked the secrets of cold fusion. Now, she has vanished.

Sarah's longtime on-and-off boyfriend, Jed Bradley, is one of the SAS's toughest soldiers. Nick and Jed have never gotten along, but now they must combine their efforts to rescue Sarah. 

Soon they are caught up in a deadly web of intrigue in which Nick and Jed encounter a traitorous scientist willing to sell out his country; a sinister Arab intent on destroying Western civilization; and a beautiful but manipulative intelligence agent whose motives are unclear.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781602860711
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	09/24/2024
Sold by:	OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	358
File size:	979 KB

About the Author

Chris Ryan joined the SAS in 1984. During his ten years in the elite squadron, he was involved in overt and covert operations, and was sniper team commander of the anti-terrorist team. During the Gulf War, Chris was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq. For this he was awarded the Military Medal. For his last two years he was selecting and training potential recruits for the SAS.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Two veterans of the British Special Air Service reluctantly join forces to rescue the beautiful young scientist at the center of their lives. U.K. bestselling author and former SAS commander Ryan (Firefight, 2008, etc.) taps into his military experience to create riveting action sequences. Unfortunately, the plot can't support the velocity of Ryan's writing. His hero is Nick Scott, a disgraced Gulf War veteran broken under torture. After the death of his wife, this defeated soldier hires himself out to protect Algerian oil rigs, sending what money he can to his daughter Sarah, a gifted Cambridge University physicist. Just as he's arrived home to London in early 2003, he finds that Sarah has disappeared, leaving an unlikely 100,000 pounds in her bank account. Scott's search is paralleled by the experiences of SAS soldier Jed Bradley, Sarah's off-again boyfriend. His first mission is to lead a bloody raid on a suspected weapons facility, trying to find WMDs to justify the invasion of Iraq. Following the money in Sarah's account, Nick discovers an implausible scenario involving his daughter's invention of a viable cold-fusion method and a sinister cabal of scientists and terrorists who have secreted her away to Baghdad. "You know my daughter's been kidnapped by Saddam Hussein?" asks Nick in one of several dated references. Against all logic, Nick and Jed are chosen by their government's intelligence service to lead a hell-for-leather raid on the Republican Palace to save Sarah. Ryan's continental debut doesn't match the substance of Andy McNab's Nick Stone novels, but its breathless pace and frenetic firefights make for an engaging diversion. An animated thriller, originally published in theUnited Kingdom in 2006, that promises ample entertainment for Military Channel junkies.

Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Chris Ryan’s novels:

“Slick, polished and gut-wrenching . . .”
—Irish Times

“Chock full of military fat to chew on . . . will keep you awake until dawn.”
—FHM

From the Trade Paperback edition.

From the Publisher