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  • Published: 26 July 2018
  • ISBN: 9781405937306
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download

The Break Line




A compelling and suspense-filled debut novel from internationally bestselling author James Brabazon

Officially, Max McLean doesn't exist. The British government denies all knowledge of the work he does on their behalf to keep us safe. But Max and his masters are losing faith in each other. And they give him one last chance to prove he's still their man.

Sent to a military research facility to meet a former comrade-in-arms, Max finds the bravest man he ever knew locked up for his own protection. His friend lost his mind during an operation in West Africa. The reason? Absolute mortal terror.

Max is determined to find out why.

Ahead lies a perilous, breathtaking mission into the unknown that will call into question everything that Max once believed in.

Acting alone, without back-up, Max lands in Sierra Leone with his friend's last words ringing in his ears: 'They're coming, Max. They're coming . . .'

The Break Line is a debut dripping with authenticity and menace. Smart, unputdownable and packed with irresistible set pieces and jaw-dropping plot twists, this is a thriller like no other.

'Beautifully written and extensively researched, The Break Line is a riveting page-turner, a gruesome delight, and a study of what lies in the shadowed corners of the human heart' GREGG HURWITZ, author of ORPHAN X

'A taught, razor-edged thriller, packed with granular detail and authenticity' JAMES SWALLOW, author of NOMAD

  • Published: 26 July 2018
  • ISBN: 9781405937306
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download

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Praise for The Break Line

The Break Line punches you in the stomach on the first page and then plunges you into the most extraordinary and exciting world of covert operations that I have ever read . I have worked in those places and covered those wars... Brabazon's novel gets it exactly right. With a terrifyingly precise eye and an irresistible prose style, he has creates a world that is almost impossible to leave. I finished the book three days ago and feel like I'm still waiting for the choppers to come take me home...

Sebastian Junger

A taut, razor-edged thriller, packed with granular detail and authenticity

</i>James Swallow, author of<i> Nomad

Beautifully written and extensively researched, The Break Line is a riveting page-turner, a gruesome delight, and a study of what lies in the shadowed corners of the human heart

</i>Gregg Hurwitz, author of<i> Orphan X

Brimming with authenticity, tightly plotted and beautifully written ... The Break Line is a belter of a thriller

</i>Fiona Cummins, author of<i> Rattle

The Break Line is insanely immersive, brilliantly blurring the lines between fiction and reality. I couldn't put it down'

</i>Tom Marcus, No.1 bestselling author of<i> Soldier Spy

Breathless, complex, and seriously hardcore - don't plan to sleep tonight.

</i>Lee Child

Taut, tough and visceral - and, most of all, written with a breath-taking authenticity'

RAYMOND KHOURY, Bestselling author of The Last Templar

A natural-born writer...strong, lucid, non-stop suspense

Ted Bell, New York Times Bestselling Author of Overkill

A natural-born writer . . . strong, lucid, non-stop suspense

Ted Bell New York Times Bestselling author of Overkill

A wonderfully crafted story of action, history, and secrets that is as imaginative as it is compelling

Steve Berry

Veteran war correspondent Brabazon brings his experience of the world's most dangerous places to this brutally compelling thriller . . . Andy McNab meets Heart of Darkness

Mail on Sunday

Echoes of Joseph Conrad & Frederick Forsyth's Dogs of War: not for the faint-hearted, as ferocious a portrait of an assassin as you will find

Daily Mail

The Break Line is a distillation of a quarter of a century of travel with a camera in one and and a notebook in the other. Set in Sierra Leone, it sees Special Forces veteran Mac McLean on a mission that is non-routine even by his own black ops standards . . . It's so twisty and multilayered it would be easy to imagine it as a computer game.

Mail on Sunday

A brilliant debut thriller. He knows how to hook a reader and keep them hoovering up pages

Nudge

A thriller of an unusually classy calibre. Eloquently written, intensively researched ... Brabazon has crafted hugely gripping, thought-provoking yarn, grounding its outlandish elements in solid realism and vivid characterisation

Financial Times

The Break Line delivers a full-throttle exercise in tension

Crimetime