You don’t have to be killed in action to be a casualty of war.Helmand Province, Afghanistan. 2006.Medics Paul Adams and Lizzie Jarman are one of the most welcome sights to injured soldiers in the war-torn poppy fields of Afghanistan. With red crosses on their arms and medical equipment strapped to their backs, they thunder into battle in a Chinook helicopter – straight into areas everyone else is … straight into areas everyone else is desperate to get away from.
In the middle of the fiercest fighting British troops have seen since the Falklands War, the medics are the last defence from death on the ground in some corner of a foreign field. But in Afghanistan, where a hostile is only obvious when they raise a weapon, there’s no such thing as a non-combatant. And not all enemies are on the other side.
Despite the heroic efforts of the medics on the ground and in the air, someone in the field hospital is determined to finish what the Taliban has started. Wounded soldiers – who should be living – are dying. Their deadliest enemy is much closer to home than they realise.
As the death toll and the temperature rise, can the medics finish their tour of duty, or will it finish them?
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I received an ARC from the author at my request and this is my honest opinion. What an AMAZING read! I was hooked from the first pages and couldn’t read fast enough. As a retired nurse, it was really good to see all the medical details and very surprising how few (if any) details Mr. Burrows got wrong. I don’t know if he was writing from experience or did excellent research, but everything hit just the right note. There is plenty of action and adventure, the true comradeship that develops between people who experience traumatic events together, the emotional minefield medical personnel have to traverse when working in a war zone, and it is all handled with just the right amount of honesty, humor, and sarcasm. All of the characters feel true to life, even the not so pleasant ones. The only criticism I have, and it is a very minor one, is that as a true mystery buff, I would have liked to have seen the murders and motive more fully developed. However, I realize that if Mr. Burrows had tried to do that the book would have had to be 500 pages long. As it is, I think he provided an awesome compromise. I most definitely recommend Man Down and I think it will appeal to fans of several different genres: military, mystery, and medical thrillers. Don’t miss out.
Well written story
This is a military medical thriller mystery, and yes it really is all the above.
Wrapped in a fast moving story line with good character development, this novel is compelling on several levels. The horrors of war are not dodged nor glorified, and the military operations and medical scenes are realistic but not heroic. Developed in the wings is a murder mystery who-or-why “dunnit”.
And most of all, the human condition is explored for several key characters. Personal faults abound here. There’s group bantering, insecurity and fear of the war theater, staunch old-liners, and a tango of love interests teased and yet to be resolved.
There are faults. Written from the point of view of the ranks of British enlisted grunts, there is a lot of sometimes confusing military jargon, and upland idioms punctuated with crude phrases. Way too many f-bombs for serious fiction.
Being book one of a series, there is more to come. Basically well done, and looking forward to further books by this author.
I have read all of Nathan Burrows’ humorous books and thoroughly enjoyed them, but this is something completely different, it is a serious book set in the war in Afghanistan and follows the adventures of a group of army medics who suspect that casualties who should survive are dying instead.
There is so much realism that I really felt that I was reading a memoir rather than a novel, and I also loved the way the tension built up towards the end.
The characters are superbly written and developed through the book, the descriptions of the locations, the operations they carried out and the conditions are all really convincing and evocative, making this a very involving book, genuinely difficult to put down.
I really hope that this author writes more of this style of book, his writing skills are obviously great enough that he can handle both, light-hearted and very serious genres with equal aplomb.
I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of the book from the author, but have voluntarily written this honest review.
Have you ever wondered what a medic in a war zone experiences?
Reading “Man Down”, will put you there. Nathan Burrows makes you feel that you are a medic in Afghanistan and that you are part of the danger and excitement.
This is an excellent e-book and difficult to put down. I am hopeful that Nathan Burrows has plans to develop a series of e-books based on the medics in this story!