BATTLEFIELD 3: THE RUSSIAN - BOOK REVIEW

Based on the computer game this is more of a side story than a straight novelisation of the game (so I have heard), which actually works to the advantage. This is mainly because pretty much every novelisation of a computer game I’ve ever read is pretty much an entertaining piece of rubbish. This breaks that mould somewhat by actually being a pretty decent thriller, even more so, despite being ‘co-authored’ this very much reads like an Andy McNab book so as a fan you are well catered for. The lead character of the novel is an ex-Spetsnaz soldier Dima Mayakovsky who ends up hunting down a suitcase WMD in the middle east, encountering a US marine Sergeant Henry Blackburn, the central character in the computer game, along his travels. Like all of McNab’s other novels this blast along with breakneck speed as bad situation is compounded by worse situations and just plain terrible ones. Being a fan of McNab’s Nick Stone thrillers I found this equally entertaining and it was nice to find the author writing about a Russian central character than the usual English or American, as we normally see in these sorts of books. Despite having the potential stigmata of being based on a game I think this book would stand up pretty well without the Battlefield 3 links as a good military thriller. There’s plenty of big action scenes and some great dialogue as well as a brilliant lead character in Mayakovsky and I would rate this alongside any of his Stone books. I have a slight niggle with part of the climax, which I can’t really go into as that would be a bit of a spoiler, but this didn’t annoy me enough to sully my enjoyment of the book. I would love to read more books about this character although I would expect this would be unlikely to happen. Not being a massive gamer I find myself actually wanting to give the game a go after reading this. I sincerely hope that the gamers’ out there will want to give the book a go after playing the game.