Ex-special forces soldier Alex Abbott escaped the Middle East under a cloud and now lives hand-to-mouth in Singapore. Scraping a living as a gun for hire and estranged from his family, Abbott is haunted by ghosts of the past, drinking to dull the pain. Life’s tough, but there is one upside – at least he’s not in Baghdad. That’s about to change….
Scar Tissue by Ollie Ollerton Review
Tense, Fast-Paced and Addictive!
Full disclosure, I’m an avid Lee Child fan, I’m obsessed with history (particularly 20th century history), and I’ve read more John le Carre than I care to think about. I’ve largely avoided special forces fiction because the few I’ve read concentrate too much on losing limbs than building characters.
Scar Tissue, by Ollie Ollerton came across my desk, and it caught my eye as it was pitched “as pacey as Lee Child”, and as thrilling as Die Hard. Surely worth a read!
This is the first adventure into fiction for Ollie Ollerton, and I’m already waiting for the second installment, the end of the book (spoiler alert) tells us that there is definitely more to come and I, for one, cannot wait.
Scar Tissue definitely lives up to the hype of being fast-paced, as ex-special forces soldier Alex Abbott escapes the Middle East and we find him living harshly in Singapore. Using his skills as an operative, he manages to feed himself as a gun for hire, but through drink and ghosts from the past, he quickly finds himself in trouble.
We are thrust into his son going missing in Baghdad, and Alex has to face his demons quickly, and remember who he used to be whilst revisiting his past life. We are shot forward, literally and figurately at every step of the way.
I love broken characters, and Alex really embraces that. He’s a drunk, he’s flawed, and he’s probably had one fight too many. Better still, the ending is not at all predictable, and I was yanked from page to page.
For his first fiction outing, this book has a huge amount of realism sown up with the drama you need to grab you from the first page. Ollie Ollerton was a director on the British TV series ‘Who Dares Wins’, as well as being an ex-Special Forces Soldier, and it really shows.
No more will I ignore this genre, highly recommended, especially for people who, like me, haven’t ventured into this type of book before.
About the Book
Ex-special forces soldier Alex Abbott escaped the Middle East under a cloud and now lives hand-to-mouth in Singapore. Scraping a living as a gun for hire and estranged from his family, Abbott is haunted by ghosts of the past, drinking to dull the pain. Life’s tough, but there is one upside – at least he’s not in Baghdad. That’s about to change….
When a job goes badly wrong, Abbott’s in hot water. Next, he learns that his military son, Nathan, is missing in Iraq. Knowing something is wrong, needing to find his son and desperate for redemption, Abbott has no choice but to go back. Returning to Baghdad, Abbott renews old acquaintances and begins his search for Nathan. The body count rises as old wounds open and he struggles to confront his demons, self-medicating the only way he knows how. But when one of his old crew turns up dead in mysterious circumstances and the link with Nathan is clear, Abbott begins to suspect a trap.
But who is the hunter? And who is the hunted?
About the Author
Matthew ‘Ollie’ Ollerton is a former Special Forces soldier and was one of the founding Directing Staff on Channel 4’s hit show SAS: Who Dares Wins and SAS Australia.
Ollie now spends his time as an entrepreneur running three companies, Break Point, Battle Ready 360 and Double O Global, all designed to improve people’s lives. Ollie is an ambassador for the Royal Marines Charity and a director of the mental health charity StrongMen. His two previous non-fiction books, Break Point and Battle Ready, have both been Sunday Times bestsellers, with Break Point going to number one in the chart.
Many Thanks to Tracy Fenton at Compulsive Readers and Orion for inviting us on this Blog Tour.
