If you like a bit of lone soldier going gung-ho in Afghanistan, then this could be the book for you or at least one for you to read. It is a standalone book, but the last pages also lead you onto reader the next book in the series.
To anyone familiar with the deserts of the Middle East and everyone else who watches the news from there, then the landscape is very familiar. The emptiness, sheer isolation and the eerie quiet all make this somewhere for regular westerners brought up on fast food, nightlife, fast cars and the good life, somewhere to avoid at all costs. It takes a certain type of character to go there.
SAS Sergeant Tommy Reeves is one of those people. His back story is told well. The way tragedy enforces upbringing and develops a young man has credibility.
What I liked:
The storyline is simple, yet made convoluted by war. The goodies are at war with the baddies. That goes without saying. However, there are also some baddies who are supposed to be working with the goodies but are actually working with the other baddies. That's where the difficulties come in. Tommy Reeves is on the trail of the second lot of baddies. There will be blood, gore, abductions and blatant killing. There will be tussles with honour, right or wrong, good versus bad that affect a man's behaviour and question his existence. And there will be a positive outcome but one, as mentioned above, that might have you reaching for the next book in the series.
What I didn't like:
This book, like many others we read these days has been curated with the American reader in mind. Maybe there is a bigger market for this over there? However, this is also the story of a solitary, English SAS solder. For this issue for that reason, I cannot for the life of me wonder why it was not written in the British language. Someone will say that everyone speaks English. Wrong, and certainly not what many will understand to be British English.
This book, as good as it is, suffers from what I call 'editors' bleariness'. How long has the proof/reader been given to make the changes into American English? Was she/he tired of the storyline by the time they reached the end and so they missed easy repetition? Were the basic rules of writing forgotten in the rush to complete their tasks? A word checker that does not check for grammar is a must, surely? If you are going to use acronyms, then please be aware that most modern practices remove the full stops/periods between each letter. For example: S.A.S, S.S.G, C.I.A, US, UK will be written as SAS, SSG, CIA, US, UK, etc in most modern texts. Consistency is probably the hardest to maintain so the author proof-reader, and editor must be on the same page. Is it OK, ok, Ok or Okay?
Towards the end, we read one conversation where a person talks about contacts in an organisation. He speaks to a guy, who knows another guy, who puts him in contact with another guy. There must be more interesting ways to write this out.
Four stars for the story. I quite enjoyed it. It was difficult to put down at times.
Only three stars for the spelling, formatting and uses of function.
No stars at all for writing a story about an English soldier serving in Afghanistan, in American English.
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![NOMAD: A Thrilling Mystery Set on the Scorching Sands of Afghanistan (DAMOCLES Book 1) by [Darren Guthrie]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41t5jDcxBoL._SY346_.jpg)
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Rhiw Sider
An English SAS storyline written in American English
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 December 2020Verified Purchase
Rhiw Sider
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 December 2020
To anyone familiar with the deserts of the Middle East and everyone else who watches the news from there, then the landscape is very familiar. The emptiness, sheer isolation and the eerie quiet all make this somewhere for regular westerners brought up on fast food, nightlife, fast cars and the good life, somewhere to avoid at all costs. It takes a certain type of character to go there.
SAS Sergeant Tommy Reeves is one of those people. His back story is told well. The way tragedy enforces upbringing and develops a young man has credibility.
What I liked:
The storyline is simple, yet made convoluted by war. The goodies are at war with the baddies. That goes without saying. However, there are also some baddies who are supposed to be working with the goodies but are actually working with the other baddies. That's where the difficulties come in. Tommy Reeves is on the trail of the second lot of baddies. There will be blood, gore, abductions and blatant killing. There will be tussles with honour, right or wrong, good versus bad that affect a man's behaviour and question his existence. And there will be a positive outcome but one, as mentioned above, that might have you reaching for the next book in the series.
What I didn't like:
This book, like many others we read these days has been curated with the American reader in mind. Maybe there is a bigger market for this over there? However, this is also the story of a solitary, English SAS solder. For this issue for that reason, I cannot for the life of me wonder why it was not written in the British language. Someone will say that everyone speaks English. Wrong, and certainly not what many will understand to be British English.
This book, as good as it is, suffers from what I call 'editors' bleariness'. How long has the proof/reader been given to make the changes into American English? Was she/he tired of the storyline by the time they reached the end and so they missed easy repetition? Were the basic rules of writing forgotten in the rush to complete their tasks? A word checker that does not check for grammar is a must, surely? If you are going to use acronyms, then please be aware that most modern practices remove the full stops/periods between each letter. For example: S.A.S, S.S.G, C.I.A, US, UK will be written as SAS, SSG, CIA, US, UK, etc in most modern texts. Consistency is probably the hardest to maintain so the author proof-reader, and editor must be on the same page. Is it OK, ok, Ok or Okay?
Towards the end, we read one conversation where a person talks about contacts in an organisation. He speaks to a guy, who knows another guy, who puts him in contact with another guy. There must be more interesting ways to write this out.
Four stars for the story. I quite enjoyed it. It was difficult to put down at times.
Only three stars for the spelling, formatting and uses of function.
No stars at all for writing a story about an English soldier serving in Afghanistan, in American English.
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