This book started off surprisingly good. I normally don't read a lot of action thrillers, but this one makes me feel like I should up that number.

Gabriel Wolfe's the kind of guy I would have hypothetically wanted to settle down with if I hadn't already been taken. He's kind, intelligent, funny, a dog lover, a great cook, and, pardon my French/look away now kids: fit as fuck!

Now, Sir Toby Maitland is one of the most despicable creatures I've come across in literature...I love it! Seriously, I don't know what it is with these pompous sack of shit type of guys, but I find myself gobbling it all up while giggling like a schoolgirl.

You can tell this has been written by a Brit (Englishman in this case I believe). The dry tongue in cheek type of humour could be found all throughout the book. I'm not saying it would've been less funny if it was written by an American, just a different kind of funny. A few examples I highlighted:

"Five minutes passed. Not long if you're cruising along an interstate, or watching a TV show: an eternity if you're sitting with your feet up on a suitcase full of cocaine in a Hells Angels hideout fitted out like some latter-day Hole in the Wall."

"Yes, well, let's not waste time debating the rights and wrongs of detonating corpses versus feeding them to pigs. We have bigger issues to deal with now."

This kind of stuff tends to crack me up. And makes the grand scheme of Sir Toby Maitland something to take less serious as a reader. In fact, I'm not even sure if you could call this a thriller at all. I was certainly glued to the edge of my seat during the action scenes often enough, but I never really felt like I should be scared or anxious. Which, to be clear, doesn't affect my judgement of the book at all. I'd rather have a good laugh than nibble on my fingernails in distress. And mine aren't even painted so elegantly like the ones of most of the women in this book.

Speaking of elegant women, I'm definitely not a girly-girl, but the amount of information on weapons and cars was a bit too much for me personally. I even admit to skimming through those kind of parts a couple of times. Which I could do without missing anything important in the storyline. You can see it as a bit of a bonus for people who are interested in the mechanics of an M15, yet it doesn't truly interfere with the story for people who aren't.

Something I wondered about throughout the last two-thirds of the book was: the dog. I'm trying not to make a spoiler out of this, yet why? Why oh why?! And what did it add to the story? Was the dog just in there to add a sensitive layer to Gabriel's personality?

"Even when men he fought alongside, or commanded, had been killed in front of him, he'd never cried. Now, 6,000 miles away from his dog, grief overtook in him a rush."

That's the only thing that would explain it to me.

Trigger Point was definitely very entertaining; I went through it in no time! There's plenty of action, the characters are well-developed and Andy Maslen just really knows how to fucking write. I'm giving it 3.5 brownies and recommending it to people who are already into this genre, but also to everyone who likes a bit of fast-paced action infused with dry humour. Book 2 of the Gabriel Wolfe-series will be coming out next month and I'm very curious to see what this next adventure will be about!

One last thing: do Americans still refer to their government as Uncle Sam? I honestly have no idea!

A big thank you to Andy Maslen for proving me with a copy of his book in exchange for an honest review