This book was previously published by Thomas & Mercer, an Amazon Publishing imprint. Please check your downloaded Kindle books before purchasing. When the British Security Service learns that a horrifying new weapon is in enemy hands, agent Andrew Harvey is called in to track it down before it reaches home soil. The clock is ticking. Andrew and his girlfriend, Sarah, also a secret service operative, have only one a beautiful refugee, desperate not to lose her son. But is she desperate enough to betray everything she believes in? And will she do it in time to help them prevent a terrifying attack? As Andrew and Sarah race to unravel a convoluted web of subterfuge and exploitation, they discover there is more at stake than even they knew. And somewhere, at the heart of it, lurks a faceless enemy, who is prepared to use everything—and everyone—at his disposal.
Alan McDermott is a full time author from the south of England, married with beautiful twin daughters. He used to write critical applications for the NHS, but now he spends his days writing action thrillers.
His debut novel, Gray Justice, has been very well received and earned him membership of http://independentauthorsinternationa.... He was subsequently picked up by Thomas & Mercer, who published his first 10 books.
Alan's 7th novel Trojan was shortlisted for an ITW thriller award.
In March 2020 he release a new standalone called Motive, and the 7th Tom Gray will be released on June 4th 2020.
A fast paced action thriller, and quite honestly, I wouldn’t expect anything less from Alan McDermott.
The race is on to find a terrifying weapon known to be in the hands of the enemy, before it reaches the UK and causes untold devastation. Secret Service Operative Andrew Harvey is brought in, along with his team, but they may well have met their match this time!
Tense and terrifying, this is another great read from an author at the top of his game.
It’s no secret that I have been a big fan of this author ever since I read the brilliant Gray Justice back in 2011 when he was still self-published. At the time of writing this, the Tom Gray series now boasts six books and shows no sign of flagging or getting stale. But wait, what’s this? Mr McDermott has something new to offer! Being Tom Gray’s self appointed number one fan, I have to admit I was a little anxious, even though it does feature some familiar faces but, I am very happy to say that I blooming well loved this book. Yes, I missed Tom but everything else I love about this author’s work was there. Great story, real-feeling characters, action, intrigue, suspense, and attention to detail.Oh and fear, lots of fear cos this guy writes bout stuff that could actually happen. In this day and age, terrorism is front and centre on the news most weeks - and that’s probably not even half of what is actually happening - and the events depicted in this book are so well researched and plotted that, at times, I have to admit to being really scared and that’s exactly what I love most about Mr McDermott’s books. I’m even more excited that besides being a cracking read, it’s also the start of a new series. Characterisation is also up to the usual standard expected from this author. If you have read the Tom Gray series, you will already be familiar with several of the main characters but, if not, they are re-introduced here so you’ll be OK. There are a few references to actions and events existing fans will also recognise but again, if you haven’t read the other books, it won’t matter as they are not necessary to the plot of this book. They do add depth and backstory however so, if you are inclined, read them first. Andrew Harvey, MI5, has got himself a cracking team, all of whom add something a little extra to the mix whilst at the same time working well together, There’s some great partnerships, teamwork, interactions and banter, they’re pretty much one big family. A family who is tasked with protecting the country in general and, in this book specifically, they are trying to avert a terror attack in London. Pacing is also really good. Unlike the Tom Gray books, this is not high octane, action packed, thrills on every page throughout. Yes, it has its moments of course, but the plot is, for the most part, more “cerebral” rather than “all guns blazing” and the pacing reflects this, building up the terror and fear factor slowly as the characters try to work out the actions from the distractions. Another thing that this author also excels at is research and this is evident in this book too. Geography, travel and timings are all, to my knowledge, accurate and credible. The technology, gadgets and other military/spy stuff is also either real or very well invented by the author as these also appear to be completely plausible. Some of the tactics and methods employed by the good guys are also a little shocking but, you know what... Means to an end, bigger picture and all that. You’ll get what I mean when you come to these bits. But again, a little bit scary.
All in all, a great opener to a series I am very much looking forward to continuing with. Well, as long as I get my next dose of Tom Gray soonish!
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.
Trojan is the start of a new series by Alan McDermott whose Tom Gray series I’ve enjoyed very much. Some of the characters in this new book have appeared before but it’s not necessary to have read previous books. The feel of this story is bang up to date and, with recent events, feels horribly plausible. Five young women, each accompanied by a child, have undergone an operation to secrete a highly dangerous substance within their bodies so it can be smuggled into Britain. MI5, chiefly Andrew Harvey and his team, have the task of finding the phials in order to prevent a terror incident of considerable magnitude.
The pace of this story is fast and exciting, the storyline shifting and twisting as the terror plot is revealed. Harvey acts upon one clue and another problem falls in his path. His personal life takes on a new turn too, and his boss is being hounded by a Home Secretary determined to oust her from her post. Right to the end, the story maintains the excitement and horror of a potential massive terror attack. A very convincing and rather scary plot and an excellent read.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.
Trojan is an edge of your seat, fast paced thriller which kept me gripped throughout. A tense and action packed story of terrorism which was frighteningly plausible and topical. With a strong MI5 team trying to foil an horrific terrorist attack in London Trojan kept me reading until the early hours desperate to find out what happens.
The setting was London and they were working against the clock to find terrorists with vials of a deadly agent. It rings all to real and what our world is dealing with. An easy and interesting read.
Riveting!! From page one I was hooked! The first time I read Alan McDermott, it was his Tom Gray series. All books in that series were amazing. Andrew Harvey was a key player in that series and now Trojan starts Alan's series. A plot against the UK with the most horrible biological weapon possible. Alan and his team, including his girlfriend Sarah are tasked with trying to unravel the plot, the players, the target, but can they do it in time? The twist and turns in this one are plenty. Right up until the last page, I was on the edge of my seat not knowing what would happen! Can't wait for the next installment!! Write fast Alan!!
This book is a very nicely done thriller focusing heavily on terrorism, the people that become terrorist as well as those that try to prevent and fight terrorist as best as possible.
Lets start right away with what bothered me about this book and then move on from there! - The beginning was really slow, and it took me almost half the book to really get involved and actually interested in the story and the book. Which honestly? That is a bit long for me to get invested into a thriller to actually be able to say i enjoyed it greatly. So sadly because of that really long and slow start of this book where a lot of characters and backstory and plot lines were introduced and laid out. - the huge amount of characters. Its not the biggest cast of characters i ever had in a book, but for a thriller? This book as a HUGE cast and sometimes i honestly had a bit of a problem finding out what character we where currently following along and for a good while i also just tried to figure out what the heck each of those characters even brought to the overall story! So in my option? A bit too many characters for this type of book. BUT that is a very personal preference but since it is my own review i can say what bothered me personally!
Other then those two things the book was good.
I enjoyed how the topic was handled, how the action build up until it finally really got speed and carried the story nicely to the end of the book. I also really enjoyed how the author let all the pieces fall into place throughout the book and how everything worked together. It was a very well thought out plot!
The author also has to a real talent in find a balance of showing the readers that he did his work, research wise, without flooding the readers with technical jargon or unnecessary information. So that was really nicely done!
All in all this book was pretty good, and if the first half of the book could have kept up with the second half to his book it would have been fantastic!
But i am certainly interested in reading more from this author and see if the slow start of this book is just because it is the first in a series or if the author simply needs a good amount of pages to get really moving with the story.
*thanks to NEtGalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for a free and honest review!*
A decent enough thriller that covers all the usual bases within its pages. It is up to date with current fears of Islamic terrorists using the migrant crisis to enter the U.K., and in this case with a chemical/biological weapon of mass destruction the bad guys want to unleash on London. Our main characters are all MI5 operatives with a plentiful supply of bad-guy and red-herring Muslim characters to fill out the pages.
The method of getting the WMD into the UK is ingenious but told in too straightforward a manner. The tension in the storyline doesn’t build up that much as our hero Andrew Harvey seems to do most of his work from an office. This is probably how it works in real life MI5 but for a thriller reading about how people trawl through hours of CCTV images doesn’t get the juices flowing.
There are two supporting plots involving Harvey and his girlfriend, plus Harvey’s boss and her run in with the Home Secretary but even these aren’t fully evolved and seem to be too easily resolved as if the author didn’t want to take the big risk of writing a real curveball into the story that would shock the readers.
Not a novel that would make me rush out and read this author's other works.
“Trojan” eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Alan McDermott. He has published ten novels. This is the first in his new "Andrew Harvey" series.
I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story is set in contemporary Europe, mostly in England. The primary character is MI5 agent Andrew Harvey.
MI5 hears of the threat of attack by terrorists using a powerful nerve gas. Harvey and his fellow agents must find out who is going to carry out the attack. They must sift through many leads to track down those who are involved in the pending attack.
While there is some action, this is mostly a story of intrigue and misdirection. I enjoyed the 4.5 hours I spent reading this 302 page thriller. I liked the characters in the novel as well as the plot. The plot in this novel was not as predictable as many of this genre that I have read. The cover art is OK. I give this novel a 4.4 (rounded down to a 4) out of 5.
Trojan is a well-crafted thriller which has the underpinnings of reality, as the plotline feels like things we often hear about in the news. British intelligence is charged with tracking down a terrorist group who have used a rather ingenious method to smuggle a dangerous biological weapon into the UK.
I'll be honest, I didn't particularly care about the protagonists of the story, but the author did a good job of building an emotional connection with some of the women who were caught up in the middle - voluntarily or otherwise - of the terrorist plot. I thought the author did a good job of ramping up the tension throughout the novel, and all in all I felt this was a well-written, extremely competent thriller.
A solid effort in a crowded marketplace, and I will be investigating this author's future releases with interest.
I received a review copy through NetGalley from the publisher.
I am a little surprised by all the high ratings for this book. It's a MI5/MI6 race to find terrorists who have a plot to kill thousands. Up to the minute and topical but it just wasn't for me. The writing is OK and I have certainly read / listened to worse but the stereotypical characterisation was just too much for me.
Another excellent book from Alan McDermott. I’ve read may of Alan’s books over the years and all have been really good. Trojan is no exception. A story that starts and ends in Syria which tells the tale of a terrorist plot to set off a deadly nerve agent in the heart of London. With agents from M15 hunting down every lead in a race against time to find the terrorist who has the nerve agent. A fast paced page turner, which has you feeling the frustration of the M15 agents as they head down blind alley alley after blind alley. Will they find the terrorist and stop the plot to release the nerve gas in time?
Alan's Tom Gray series was recommended to me for a friend and I ended up reading it too. I absolutely loved it and so was eager to read his new series.
Trojan is the first in his new Andrew Harvey series and wow, what a series debut! Trojan is a fast paced story of terrorism that scarily could become all too real in today's climate.
I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book, with thanks to Netgalley and the publisher. 5*
This book wasn't what I was expecting, I just assumed it was another story about Tom Gray. So it was good to read a story from the angle of the secret services, normally I tend to concentrate on books about the soldiers in the thick it finishing the job off! So it was a pleasant surprise, although I think it enticed you in because you knew the people in MI5 from the Tom Gray series in the beginning! Still a great read!!!
This never really clicked for me. The pacing took ages to get going and I felt there were a dearth of likable characters. Most of the scenes were resolved via tedious depictions of surveillance state policework. Waiting for facial recognition AI to make a hit on one of the twenty billion CC cameras does not make for a nailbiting potboiler, sorry. Also, the terror plot ended up being more mundane than I had imagined. Too many scenes were described twice, which was pointless when the good guys were able to trace the baddies' movements so effortlessly. It had some tense moments and a few genuinely intriguing twists, but so many anticlimactic resolutions that I couldn't wait for it to be over.
A compelling contemporary thriller in the Spooks mould using the Syrian civil war and mass migration/refugee crisis as the backdrop. In less skilful hands it could have come across as racist and Islamophobic, but it doesn't. Like many of these books I am uncomfortable with the premise that you have to fight fire with fire, but I knew that would be a given before I started so I shouldn't complain. It's not going to win many awards but it passed the time on a long journey nicely.
Lots of MI5 action with some interference from MI6. It doesn't take long to determine where the title of the book comes from. A radical Islamic group has smuggled vials of a virus into London by implanting them into the stomachs of young women. Andrew Harvey is in charge of tracking the vials down. This isn't easy since he is given misdirection at every turn. Another excellent read from the author of the Tom Gray series.
From first to last, this book does not disappoint. The way the the secret service agent's are portrayed seems very real and the story so believable. It is easy to see how this story could become reality, and is more than frightening to realise that fact. Well done Alan for a thoroughly enjoyable book with plenty of action and excellent communication on how we think units like MI5 run. Well recommended.
Enjoyed this book but did miss Tom a bit .Andrew and his team work very well together to protect the country .Scary to think this could happen real life and the gadgets used could or are real as well as the plot !!The writer keeps the book high paced and characters really come to life great new series and Author has done his homework can't wait to read more glad to see Sonny and his boss great characters.looking forward to more please Alan .
This is my assessment of this book Trojan by Alan McDermott according to 6 criteria: 1. Too long and Strenuous action - exciting - 5 stars 2. Boring - fun - 4 stars 3. not difficult to read (as for non English native speaker] - 3 stars 4. predictable (common) - good story (unusual) - 3 stars 5. Shalow story - has a deeper meaning - 3 stars 6. The story is mass and Unfinished - The story is clear, understandable and well rounded story - 4 stars
Amazing narration from Andy Stevenson, who brings out the suspense, action and the twists.
We have a plot against the UK , to use a biological weapon. Alan, with his girlfriend Sarah and his team, try to find out , who is behind the plot, the real players, and what the target will be, but can they do it in time? The pace of this story is fast and exciting, the storyline shifting and twisting as the terror plot is revealed.
What an astounding read – grabs you from the first page and just doesn’t let you go! Read it in less than 8 hours because I just couldn’t put it down! What with all the hate going on in today’s world – the characters seem like they are more than real --- the plot just doesn’t let go and the ending is terrifying!
One of the best thrillers of potential events in our world that I've read and unfortunately , might be a portent of something to come. The scheming of the bad guys was tighter than most hope for, but revealed the basic differences in the thinking of Islamic jihadists vs any civilized people. Whatever it takes is their philosophy and humanity means nothing.
Have just finished Trojan by Alan McDermott. What a tale, my attention was captured at the start and was held until the end ! Can’t wait to read more in this series. This book is so relevant to all the conflicts around the world in 2018. Very thought provoking and stimulates discussion and hopefully clarity re issues on both sides. Highly recommended reading.
This is the first book I’ve read by Alan McDermott, an easy to read story about terrorist and biological warfare. Although this is about Muslim terrorist it didnt come over as racist against all Muslims, the storyline was realistic, it could happen, and since the book was first published similar events have already been reported, a good read I’ll be reading more of his books
Action packed story that demonstrates the detail, time and extreme effort it takes for an intelligence service to intervene and prevent a lethal chemical attack on a large crowd. The determination of the main characters is incredible; while the dedication of the enemy presents dramatic deceptions.
From line one to the final letter this novel gripped and held my attention. An unforseen hospital stay overseas was made much more enjoyable thanks to your smart casting and plot twists. I look forward to the next, hopefully with Tom Gray, in more comfortable environment of home. Well done.
Good read with a few twists and turns, enjoyed the storyline as it’s inline with current affairs in the Middle East. Characters profiles could have been a bit deeper but otherwise I can see this book appealing to most action and adventure followers such as myself.