First to Kill

This first in a series features a former military sniper who now has his own security company and is recruited by government agency heads to take on missions that require danger, absolute secrecy and require his unique skill set to complete. Nathan McBride is a 45 year old ex-military hero whose looks and body are in prime physical condition except for the disfiguring scars on his face and his body. This book introduces the reader to McBride and his way of doing things, along with his partner, Harvey, with whom he served in the military. The two of them have a close friendship and co-own their security company. Nathan McBride is my new book hero and his missions increase my reasons for calling him a hero.

Two women and two men heroes. No lack of bravery. The plot continues to unfold . If you like action thrillers, this book is for you.

This book was about mystery and suspense and action. The problem was, you never knew who was giving you the right way to go.

****** SPOILER ALERT *******Having been enticed by the raving reviews, and - admittedly - the cheap price, I delved into this with rather high expectation. I should have been wary though, considering that the author is an NRA "Master" of shooting skill. I am not one of those liberals who cringe at any form of violence (why those people read this kind of book is a mystery to me anyway) but the views advocated in this work are too simple, too naive, and too violent without proper justification.The story brings us close to Nathan, a sniper hero with bad looks yet who is able to connect to no less than three women (one of them being a prostitute of sorts) in the span of the book. He has been tortured by the baddies on a mission back in Nicaragua (for whom he no longer holds any grudge, though) and - apparently during the three weeks of his personal hell on earth - formed a unique view on the world that somehow gives him the justification for doing what he is good at: "Nathan McBride, in his environment", is a sentence that appears on several instances when it gets violent. As a result, although purportedly "not enjoying" torture and killing, he feels no qualms when applying torture to just about anybody he judges to be on the other side. He also has some uncanny ability to "feel" things or "see" them when convenient for driving the story. That same ability fails him miserably though when it could have a made a difference. I couldn't help asking myself "wtf?!" on more than one occasion.The story tries to weave some tale around this man, hunting some bad guys and helping the FBI in the process. At times it is interesting, but mostly it is linear, rather predictable (the big surprise really isn't), and the motivation of Nathan and his sidekick Harv remains somewhat dubious throughout.I give this three stars because it does have its moments, especially when the author describes the ghillie suits and the use of stealth. Yet the entire pretext (a retired FBI director on a personal vengeance selling Semtex to the guy who killed his daughter) is somewhat unbelievable, and the sudden ability of Nathan to form a bond with not one but two (!) female characters of the FBI is ... surprising, to say the least. The book feels superficial, the entire way.The book did not compel me into going for the author's other works.

My desire: That someone will eventually write about an ex-special forces soldier who does not possess super-human skills. Nathan McBride, the story’s protagonist, is just another one of those proto-typical ex-special forces soldier who is bestowed by the author with superhuman skills (aka: unbelievable skills) and knows how to do just about anything. He’s a little too unbelievable for my tastes.We are told that Nathan McBride was an ex-Marine scout sniper, but then Frank Ortega refers to McBride as Major McBride. I never knew a Marine scout sniper who was an officer and to the best of my knowledge there are no Marine officers qualified as Marine scout snipers. An officer would have been a scout sniper platoon commander and would have attended the scout sniper platoon commander’s course, but they would never have been a fully-trained, operational Marine scout sniper. Claiming to be an ex-Marine scout sniper and an ex-major in the Marines is an oxymoron.The Capitol of the United States is spelled Capitol, not Capital. Capitol Park is not spelled Capital Park. Capitol Police is not spelled Capital Police. www.uscapitolpolice.gov/home.php One would think that the author would have, and should have, known the correct spelling of the U.S. Capitol.The story frequently drifts off into descriptive detail about things that are not relevant to either the main plot or to any of the major sub-plots. As example, all the medical procedure detail in the hospital after the bombing of the FBI office in Sacramento. As if the author wanted to show the reader that he had done research on such things, even though such things had no relevance to the story.Even though there is too much detailed description of tangential things and occurrences, the main story is a pretty good one and was worth the read. The dialogue was often unimaginative and somewhat laborious—and bordered on being expository dialogue on too many occasions—but I was also able to overlook those annoyances because the plot held my interest.Overall, a reasonably good debut novel. I’m not sure if I would read another Nathan McBride story, mainly because he’s too “super hero” for my tastes, but if you are into super-human protagonists then you would probably enjoy one of these stories.Kindle Readers: Be forewarned. The conversion of this book to Kindle format has resulted in a lot of odd spellings and random punctuation. Some reviewers complained about the lack of editing, but the problems are mostly caused by software interpretation/conversion. But, one the other hand, one would think the author would have gone to the effort to repair those problems.

An ok-ish read but felt like a story written for an action film with plenty of guns, explosions, and tearing around the country (plus a token bit of romance/sex), rather than a book for lovers of a good plot and depth of character.Nathan and his side-kick Harv are likeable enough, if you overlook their willingness to torture everyone they meet, but the author only skims the surface when it comes to explaining their history, motivations, feelings, relationships etc.. Instead huge chunks of the book are dedicated to describing guns, surveillance kit, and sniper tactics. For lovers of all this technical jargon/information it's a real food fest but it seems to have been included at the expense of detail to character and plot.The reasoning behind the bombers (Bridgestone brothers) and ex FBI controller's (Frank Otega) actions had a good foundation and plenty of potential for an interesting story, but again this wasn't gone into and pursued in any depth by the author.On the whole I'd say this book left me feeling fairly bored and unsatisfied.Part of me was tempted to buy the second book to see if we got to know Nathan and Harv better but in the end I just wasn't that bothered.P.S. Minus 2 Stars for chapter 1....the "here's how I controlled this situation but you too can control your anger and turn your life around" dialogue was completely cringeworthy/nauseating and almost made me stop reading.

The sniper genre is heavily populated by the likes of Lee Child's Reacher and Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp and here comes another. The plots are generally linear with more or less love interest along the way. It's early days as to whether McBride will be shown with more characterisation but there are hopeful signs of an inner life. It's a promising start by the author who clearly knows his Sig Sauers from his Heckler and Kochs. For non American readers to whom the fine detail of the merits of one sniper rifle over another are less important than the results, there is a tendency to think "what would Reacher have used" as he casts such a long shadow over the genre, but I think I shall read more of this series.

For all the military and vets out there, you'll love this. Edge of the seat stuff that to won't want to stop reading until the end.

Initially, I thought this was a cheap Robert Crais, Elvis Cole/Joe Pike ripoff and I didn't think I was going to take to the story. I'm glad to say, I was dead wrong!McBride gets dragged into a field operation by Ortega, whose FBI son has gone missing while undercover. However not everything is at it seems.As I say, initially I didn't take to the dynamic of the McBride character, but it all somehow fell into place. In the end there was a good story, good characters and it all knitted together well. McBride is one of those heroes who bounces back from nearly anything, but his relationship with Harv is well scripted, and there are enough twists and turns to keep you hanging on in their with the plot.So, in the end, I really liked this book, and I am looking forward to reading the next instalment

I usually go for murder mysteries but decided to try something different and well I thoroughly enjoyed this book even though spotted a couple of typos they couldn't spoil it. I especially liked the descriptions of how the snipers moved, dressed and looked for and then found who they were looking for. I'm going to buy the second book and hopefully it's as good as this one. Totally recommend reading this book.