Title: Nomad
Author: James Swallow
Genre: Thriller
Date: 2016
Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre
Pages: 512
Started: 17th April 2017
Completed: 16th September 2017
Rating: 4.5/5
Summary: Marc Dane is a MI6 field agent at home behind a computer screen, one step away from the action. But when a brutal attack on his team leaves Marc as the only survivor – and with the shocking knowledge that there are traitors inside MI6 – he’s forced into the front line.
However the evidence seems to point towards Marc as the perpetrator of the attack. Accused of betraying his country, he must race against time to clear his name. With nowhere to turn to for help and no one left to trust, Marc is forced to rely on the elusive Rubicon group and their operative Lucy Keyes. Ex US Army, Lucy also knows what it’s like to be an outsider, and she’s got the skills that Marc is sorely lacking.
A terrorist attack is coming, one bigger and more deadly than has ever been seen before. With the eyes of the security establishment elsewhere, only Lucy and Marc can stop the attack before it’s too late.
Nomad is the first book in the Marc Dane series, originally known as the Rubicon series, by British writer James Swallow. The second book, Exile, is currently available in hardback form and will be released in paperback in December 2017.
James Swallow has also written scripts, video games, novellas, short stories, and nonfiction books.
I really enjoyed this book. I did actually have to restart it because I couldn’t get into it the first time around and I ended up. That was definitely about my mindset though rather than the book because I couldn’t read anything for months.
The plot was intricate, even if the blurb on the back did give some of it away, and the twists were well thought out and subtly hinted at the through the whole book. It was a thrilling book with very intense scenes of violence and tension. I even enjoyed the ending which was satisfying, as it closed many aspects of the plot, but it was also open enough to allow for sequels and further exploration of the characters and the plot. The concept of Rubicon is also very intriguing and I’m eager to find out how the sequels build upon the events and the mysteries of the first novel.
I liked the characters, especially Lucy, because they were so life-like. Flawed and realistic. None of the characters were fully explained in this novel as it’s only the first in the series but they were still well-rounded and full characters. Their personalities shone through in their actions, large and small, and their interactions with other characters.
I disliked two scenes in the novel: the first was during a fight sequence at the beginning where the main character presses his thumb into another character’s eye and the second is a sex dream. Scenes with violence towards the eye area always freak me out (it happens in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels rather often and I always have to skim past it) so that’s just a personal hang up but the sex scene was unnecessary. It was just used as a way to frame the main character’s revenge and I thought it was a tad lazy.
Overall, it was an amazing book with themes relevant to today and a clever plot. I’d thoroughly recommend reading it.
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