I like SAS style stories and this book falls into that category without any doubt whatsoever.

Dark Winter is something, a terrible something and it's not a season of the year with particularly bad weather!

This review is perhaps unkindly short but that's because the basic plot is simple.

What I found offputting in this case is that there is a lot of gratuitous violence in this book, together wiht a lot of graphic detail. It adds to the tension of course but it's the sort of thing that in films and plays are normally left unsaid but that must be true.

Mixed in with all of this is terrorism and our hero's need to be a good father: he isn't. At least he feels really guilty as the firm keeps tugging at his snese of duty while his daughter keeps tugging at his heart.

The story takes us round London, with some nice bits to the story that are unique to me at least and that are the sorts of things that propbably happen but that I would never think of doing.

Then we troll of the East Anglia and back to London via Germany. A lot of serious fighting, hand to hand tooth loosening fighting. Of course there's a bit of flirting and romance thrown in.

Oh! and some insubordination too, to help the story along.

There is collateral damage aplenty and the terrorists are terrible in terms of what Dark Winter actually is and what it must mean for anyone even to think of using it.

A good thriller, with a lot of tension that is easy to read if this is the kind of book you like to read.

Duncan Williamson
28th May 2006