When it comes to stories of war, names like Andy McNab and Chris Ryan constantly top the bestsellers list. These ex-SAS soldiers seem to have found their niche in the market and fill it with fast-paced thrillers that chart plots spanning whole wars and continents, decades and careers. Now another name could well be on the way to appearing alongside such bestselling authors. With The Paradigm Shift, Richard Holland has created a story that sits perfectly with the current political climate and the strained times we live in. From the opening chapter, the story drags the reader from page to page, location to location. The story, centring on the Indian Prime Minister s plan to shift power from America and its allies to India, is fictional, but the depth of detail and research, combined with many of the world s current troubles could easily be documented from fact. Whether the action takes place in The White House, undercover in Yemin or in Delhi the level of detail and atmosphere are sufficient to give readers plenty to dwell on, while being written in a style that is not so complex it cannot be easily read and followed. Gulf War veteran Luke Weaver, working for the British Secret Service in Special Ops, kicks off the story. To all but a few select MI6 senior executives, Luke is a dead man, said to have perished in a failed operation. The story opens with Luke on an operation in Yemen, on the edge of the Omani border, before moving the scene to The Pentagon and The White House where the initial threads of the story are set in motion. As the world is caught in a very believable predicament, the British and American governments combine forces by sending their best agents into the battle of power and politics: Luke Weaver from one side, and the resourceful Kirin D Souza from the other. With well crafted action scenes running alongside episodes in the White House where words become the weapons, Hollands has a knack of producing the right tone to his writing that ensures the scenes of political wrangling are just a fast paced and tense as anything else the book has to offer. Despite the scope of the novel, spanning so many continents and countries, there are only a small number of central characters, all crafted with their own personalities, weaknesses and strengths. Readers do not get bogged down in excessive back story for numerous bit-part characters, but instead are drawn into the richly constructed stories of Weaver and D Souza. The Paradigm Shift is a well- crafted thriller, boasting a captivating narrative that constantly switches from one place to another ensuring that questions are left unanswered and the pace never slackens. The chapters are quite short, another plus point for me as this also aids to make this a page turner , drawing the reader into continuing to just one more chapter, and just one more, and just one more. This is not my usual genre of choice, but the story has all of the ingredients of a good novel and for that reason the novel gets full marks from me. Only a limited number of authors can write a genre novel that has a power to draw in those who do not usually go for that subject matter. The Paradigm Shift surprised me by keeping my attention and driving me to follow the story to it s conclusion, which is probably the best recommendation I can give it. Highly recommended by Anthony Lund, Allbooks --Review www.allbookreviews.com
