So much blood and gore!! An extremely long winded far fetched tale which was full of military jargon. I continued reading in order to confirm my quickly held suspicion about the main character's target which eventually was realised.

Really enjoyed this thriller which was definitely not my usual genre and sometimes out of my comfort zone (the violence and gore) but in spite of this, I couldn't put it down and would recommend it.

Max McLean – the killer sniper sent into highly dangerous and volatile situations without back up and without official government support.
His last job before retirement is to find the cause of terror in Sierra Leone.
This is a mixture of James Bond and Jack Reacher but with more blood and violence. So maybe a little brutish for my taste but an original storyline made the book a good read.

A state sponsored killer, Max McLean, sent on a final mission to Sierra Leone to kill a ‘professor’ who appears to be working with the Russians. Max is a UKN, an Unknown, his very existence denied by those who use his services. Has he been sold out? Is he expected to return after his mission?

I cannot reveal the true identity of the ‘professor’ without revealing too much of the plot. But he has created an army of berserkers with the use of a precursor to the Ebola virus, made them immune, devolved into an original state, men without fear or regret or judgement, unrestrained by their own humanity - true prelapsarian. It all sounds like a preposterous theory.

I struggled to complete this book. It is so full of the most horrific violence I have ever encountered in the written word. Much of it truly sickening. The Break Line came close on several occasions to becoming a DNF but I felt obliged to finish as this is an ARC and I owed it to the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read. The ending does have redeeming features as it provided answers to what really happened ‘out there’.

It just wasn’t for me.

With thanks to Penguin UK-Michael Joseph and NetGalley.

The well-known business rule, KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) is one which I think should be heeded by debut authors. Unfortunately, James Brabazon appears to have introduced every single idea that was floating around in his head, into his first novel, and then thrown in the kitchen sink and much more besides. Thus what starts off as a quite intriguing take on a black ops squad within the secret service, morphs into a sort of horror tale involving super-humans, mad scientists and a group of sinister Russian characters who seem to have surfaced from an old James Bond novel.

The other thing I think that Mr. Brabazon needs to understand is that violence is much more frightening when it is sudden and unexpected. When it becomes a continuous gore-fest, it tends to lose its effectiveness and there are definite limits to the number of ways you can describe the human body being blown to pieces.
All this is rather unfortunate because there are clear indications that James Brabazon knows how to write, knows how to flesh out characters and knows how to build tension and there were sections of this book which were genuinely exciting.

However, overall for me, this was about what might have been (and what might be in the future). I’ll certainly give this author another go but for now I’ll stick with Charles Cumming and Mick Herron.

As always, many thanks for the opportunity to review this book.

A great thriller. Well recommended. Plenty of action and violence a little too gory for me, but a good read nonetheless.

A long serving government secret assassin has reached the point where his own feelings get in the way of what he does. His masters then decide to send him on a last assignment in Sierra Leone to kill the master mind behind a movement that will destabilise the whole region. When he gets there nothing is what he expects as one by one his nominated contacts are killed. Why was it that his old comrade in arms had returned from an initial survey completely deranged? He has to turn detective to find out what is going on. As his investigations proceed and he gets into thick of things action takes place thick and fast. With no official help available he has to get what he can, some from unexpected quarters that enabled him to escape death by many a hairs breadth. However the hero just manages to survive doing what he has to do before returning home to settle accounts.

Gripping and complicated, Max is an assassin, his speciality: sniper. After a failed mission in Cuba, he is sent to Sierra Leone on a dangerous mission, which is not all it seems.
Max' journey is fraught with mis-information and intrigue. And in the final chapters, the culmination of his hunt, he is re-united with a face from the past.
This book surprised me all the way through, from finding out what was causing the deaths and terror in the north, to the man in the photograph. It was sometimes complicated in how the immunisation mist and the sleepers worked, but this book has been well thought through.
And despite Max being a paid killer, I was rooting for him the whole way.

The Break Line is a military thriller focused on an assassin working for the British Government. It’s extremely violent, at times uncomfortably so, and i admit i found it hard to read at times. I’d expected more of a spy thriller in a modern Le Carre mould, so it took some adjustment. I also found the first person at times awkward, with lengthy exposition dumps.
Given the author’s experience I assume the setting is realistic and reflects life (and death)) in the locale, but as the plot spiralled it became increasingly hard to be convinced.

Hardboiled and razor edged military thriller. Main character is really well written. Some fairly grusome set pieces but they fit the story perfectly. Fans of Clancy and Matt Reilly ( Scarecrow) will love this. I can see this becoming a huge hit.

Very readable. I look forward to the author's next one.
However, the basic premise (that someone could just be plucked from their army position and made to follow the pareticular path the 'hero' does), plus some of the other stuff, was so unbelievable that it grated badly on me and I didn't finish it.

I had high hopes for this from the description. Just my kind of book I thought. Unfortunately trybas I might I just couldn’t get into this book. I didn’t find the characters, plot or anything about this likeable or even believable. It’s very very rare that I don’t finish a book but this was one of these occasions.

It's kind of like a modern Ipcress File (well, from my memory having read it about 20 years ago!). All told in the 1st person, which was one of the issues I had. The style of the writing made it very hard to get into, having just finished The Silver Pigs also written in the 1st person just highlighted how awkward the style was in comparison. Once you get into the story, its not too bad. The main protagonist is a black-ops assassin working for the UK on a mission to an African country to take out one man to try and stop a civil war. Russians and Americans appear along the way with the usual double crosses and plot twists. The last half of the book is much better than the first half.

This is a cracking tale of espionage, politics, black ops, greed and betrayal. It will keep fans of the genre(s) engrossed until the final page is turned.

I'm so grateful to Bloodhound books for asking me to review this book - it kept me locked in another world (in spite of myself) and wanting to discover the next twist; you can't ask more than that of a book.

Highly recommended.

I'm loving this book, it's a gripper.
Outstanding subject knowledge and a propelling narrative keep you hooked into this tale.

Although I don't read many thrillers these days because I often find the plot a little far fetched,I was drawn into the intrigue and deception which was set up as soon as I opened the book.I definately needed to keep reading once I had started to find out where I was being led.The overall scenario revolves around a secret service agent who is only given scant information before he is dropped for a hit in an African state where strange going-ons have been happening which are not easily explained.The basic tenant is James Bondlike,set in a rogue African state but the background is believable especially in the light of recents happenings in Africa e.g. Ebola outbreak,corruption on many levels,USA/CIA and Russian involvement in emerging countries.This novel is ripe for making into an action movie which would press all the boxes for a really exciting,intriguing and high velocity proceedings.Has it been sold to Hollywood yet?

A fast paced thriller with ratherva lot of violence. In some ways it is similar to a Bond movie but I think it would get an 18 rating. Don't say you haven't been warned. Not really my taste but not badly written.

Started off not sure and by the end I was totally convinced this is an excellent piece of writing! As far as the authenticity of the action "scenes", I can truthfully say that this is one of the very, very few books that had me convinced that the armed conflict episodes were "real" - it's something that makes me raise an eyebrow or two in virtually everything else that I have read and I have, over the years, read one heck of a lot of books where gunfire is exchanged.

Don't want to put any spoilers in this review and so I shall end by saying that if you like tense, dark and realistic action - read this book.

Full on cinematic action which I enjoyed despite my initial misgivings that I'd requested a galley copy of a book which was more to my husband's preference. Much more than just a sniper-for-hire story, this novel tackles some tricky subjects with unexpected sensitivity. A thinking reader's killer wreaks havoc within the pages of this novel....

Well, what to make of this novel; part thriller, part science fiction, part spy yarn. Max Mclean is a government sanctioned killer and he is given one last mission in Sierra Leone to take out a bad guy. However, after a meeting with a former colleague, who appears to have lost his mind, Max is convinced there is more to the mission than his handlers would have him believe.

This is a fast paced thriller which includes many gruesome descriptions which aren't for the faint hearted. I must admit I skim read some passages. Having said, that it is very well written and conjures up the cloying heat and sense of menace of the jungle where most of the action takes place.

It is difficult to discuss the novel's content further without creating spoilers but if you enjoy a thriller with a rather intriguing and frankly quite terrifying premise, this is for you.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from NetGalley and the author. Thank you.