The New Enemy product reviews

I was pleased to finally get the opportunity to review a book that caters to an demographic that is older than "young adult", and within the first few pages it is quick to establish itself as a more mature story, with more adult themes; primarily war and torture.

This book is the third book of the Liam Scott series, and yet it still works very well as a standalone story. While it references certain storylines (I assume from previous books in the series), it provides enough information to understand the relevance without having to explain the entire story so far. It provides a great balance between providing backstory for a new reader, and providing a reminder without being too repetitive for an established Liam Scott reader.

The book starts off with a glossary of the acronyms that you will come across in the story. It's probably important to note that while it is good to reference if you forget what the acronym stands for, it is not necessary to try read and memorise them all beforehand, as the narrative will naturally explain the acronym to you the first time that you come across it in the story.

As far as the story contents go, I was initially a bit put off by the structure; It starts at a certain action-packed point in time (which also reminded me of the movie 'I Am Soldier'), but then jumps back to an earlier point, a quieter point. And I honestly thought I was going to have to read through the entire book to get back to exciting part. But luckily it was just a quirk of the introduction to the storyline. Before long we were back to present time and on a goal oriented adventure.

The characters were well presented; providing enough information to differentiate them, and create a personality, but not too much so as to take away from the story. The story itself was relatively PG; despite the violence, they warned the reader of graphic parts, and was largely generalised in its descriptions when it came to injuries, wounds, or deaths. I enjoyed the book as it had a touch of realism to it. The training methods were based on real-world training techniques, the enemy were based of real terrorist factions, and the main character wasn't a perfect infallible soldier that could take on the enemy alone.

The realism reduces the predictability of the book, and hooks you in. I read the book in two days (probably about 8-10 hours of constant reading altogether), so it is a great length for the price, and I hope to read more of liam scott's adventures in the future.