Chicane Cooper

Book review

The book “FIREWALL” written by “Andy Mcnab” is about how an ex-SAS solider called nick who works for the intelligence service is in need of cash to pay an step daughter and debts. He decides to start to some criminal work to help stay above the water. He gets offered a job to kidnap and deliver an russian warlord to st peterburg in russia but the job goes south with him alive with the target but half his team dead, the target offers him more money he lets him go. With no other way of getting the target valentime he takes the other. As agreeded nick meets him at a rich part of town, their he gets paid and offered a job, to help a hacker get in and out of a house in Finland. He finds out that what the hacker it stealing is a program capable of stealing the worlds secrets and hack online accounts. And that the east is planning to launch a cyber attack. The sitting is England, with nick traveling to other countries such as estonia, finland and russia. The genre of this book is action which I enjoy reading.

The book shows different places in different states of poverty and richness. For example it showed one country, Russia where the people were starving and dying of the cold while across a border people were walking around in expense coats and pelts in Finland. This separation shows how we think that because they are another race, another colour or poor that they can be treated different to how we are.When Nick was in russia he give an homeless man some food, knowing how it felt to be in the cold and being near death. I find that most people are blind to the war and poverty of other countries because of how they live. An ordinary life thinking that other people will do the job and not them. Wanaka and Hawea is shielded when it comes to this with no people being treated differently, no poverty or homeless around the town. I feel that is is sad people have struggle to feed themselves and to live when people could help them and make an difference.

A character that I found interesting was nick, the main character. He had an step-daughter called kelly who had seen the brutal killing of her family and was traumatised. The care for her treatment was expensive and his current job was not enough to pay for the treatment, and her relatives where making him shoulder more and more of the cost . So he decided to make more money by doing an job for an mafia group. He risked everything, being killed, put in jail for kelly so he could pay for her treatment. I found that nick would do almost everything to help his step-daughter. This is what I admire nick for, his determination for his step-daughter and safety. I can relate to this by having caring and loving parents who have shown love and protection that the same as nick his shown his step-daughter. I feel that my parents would do anything for me and to make me feel safe. We can see before she was diagnosed nick knew sometime was wrong, so he tried all he can to make her happy but failed and he knew that something was wrong. so he took her to the nearest hospital trying to get the best treatment knowing it was too expensive for him. This selflessness was another that I admire about him.

One of nicks actions I questioned, that was when nick was planning to blow up a building containing the program and its programers, but his friend was in their. So nick decided to have a quick look, this made me a bit angry because his friend has tried to save him before. Nick could not see him but decided to blow up the building, hoping he would not be killed. This carelessness for his friend was shocking and sad in my opinion.  I would never risk killing one of my friends or family even if it meant saving the world.

One message I got from the book was that some people are rich and some are poor, that sometimes it is hard to make a dent in this system of people being in the gutter and people living in an world of luxury.  Nick knew this, he had been desperately clingy to life to some points of his life to know how it felt. When in russia he saw many people in poverty knowing that it is hard to make a difference. But he bought some guy food who was freezing and starving, thinking “i knew how it felt to be in the cold”.I felt that this related back to the real world. I find that people think that giving something as small as 5 dollars will not make a difference but it does. People don’t choose where they are born, how rich their family is and that has shown me how lucky I am, living in a beautiful place, an education and three meals a day and it is important not to take this for granted.

In conclusion I found that book was good and interesting, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found that it had a good but unknowing plot to it and found it hard to put it down. The writer did a good job with this book in which I felt it address some of the problems that are in the world. I rate the book 10 out of 10.