The Paradigm Shift

When it comes to stories of war, names like Andy McNab and Chris Ryanconstantly top the bestsellers list. These ex-SAS soldiers seem tohave found their niche in the market and fill it with fast-pacedthrillers that chart plots spanning whole wars and continents, decades and careers. Now another name could well be on the way to appearingalongside such bestselling authors. With The Paradigm Shift, RichardHolland has created a story that sits perfectly with the currentpolitical climate and the strained times we live in. From the openingchapter, the story drags the reader from page to page, location tolocation. The story, centring on the Indian Prime Minister s plan toshift power from America and its allies to India, is fictional, butthe depth of detail and research, combined with many of the world scurrent troubles could easily be documented from fact. Whether theaction takes place in The White House, undercover in Yemin or in Delhi the level of detail and atmosphere are sufficient to give readersplenty to dwell on, while being written in a style that is not socomplex it cannot be easily read and followed. Gulf War veteran LukeWeaver, working for the British Secret Service in Special Ops, kicksoff the story. To all but a few select MI6 senior executives, Luke isa dead man, said to have perished in a failed operation. The storyopens with Luke on an operation in Yemen, on the edge of the Omaniborder, before moving the scene to The Pentagon and The White Housewhere the initial threads of the story are set in motion. As the world is caught in a very believable predicament, the British and Americangovernments combine forces by sending their best agents into thebattle of power and politics: Luke Weaver from one side, and theresourceful Kirin D Souza from the other. With well crafted actionscenes running alongside episodes in the White House where wordsbecome the weapons, Hollands has a knack of producing the right toneto 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 andcountries, there are only a small number of central characters, allcrafted with their own personalities, weaknesses and strengths.Readers do not get bogged down in excessive back story for numerousbit-part characters, but instead are drawn into the richly constructed stories of Weaver and D Souza. The Paradigm Shift is a well- craftedthriller, boasting a captivating narrative that constantly switchesfrom one place to another ensuring that questions are left unansweredand the pace never slackens. The chapters are quite short, anotherplus point for me as this also aids to make this a page turner ,drawing the reader into continuing to just one more chapter, and justone 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 thatreason the novel gets full marks from me. Only a limited number ofauthors can write a genre novel that has a power to draw in those whodo not usually go for that subject matter. The Paradigm Shiftsurprised me by keeping my attention and driving me to follow thestory to it s conclusion, which is probably the best recommendation Ican give it. Highly recommended by Anthony Lund, Allbooks --Reviewwww.allbookreviews.com