Armour Piercing by Peter Aengenheister plus giveaway

I have received a free e-copy of the book Armour Piercing by Peter Aengenheister to review. This is Peter’s debut novel.

Armour Piercing by Peter Aengenheister

Here is the book blurb.

A defecting Russian space scientist, awaiting debrief, is in a Warwickshire safe house that comes under attack by an assassination squad. He escapes with plans for a conspiracy involving key members of secret services across the Western world. The only person he knows in the UK, or could possibly trust, is Pete Armour, the man who was to be his de-briefer. Killed before he can reach safety, he has hidden the secret papers where only Armour could ever find them. Armour becomes the target when he and a female newspaper reporter find themselves thrust together and on the run from at least two secret service agencies and British Intelligence, who seem more hell bent on killing him than helping him. And there is a price to pay. There’s always a price to pay. This is the first of the Armour trilogy. A gripping read. Fast-paced, a thriller packed with action, twists and turns.

It is set in 1978 when Vasilli, a scientist defecting from Russia has just arrived at the safe house in Warwickshire. The only person he knows in the UK is Pete Armour, who has remained a good friend since Vasilli came on a cultural exchange to Oxford back in 1961 in their university days. And by coincidence, Pete is going to be his debriefer and has advised Vasilli of an emergency backup plan.

He is looking forward to seeing Pete again, when things go wrong as a KGB hitman enters the room. Vasilli suffers a bullet shoulder injury before the secret service agents manage to take the hitman down. Whilst gunfire continues, he hides in another room, where he finds secret documents abandoned on the table. He grabs them and escapes after reading of a major conspiracy. He needs to get to Pete, as now MI5 will be after him too.

Indeed they are. Several different secret service teams and I did get confused as to who was working for who. Every so often, I had to go back and re-read parts of the story. And less than a quarter of the way through the book, Vasilli is killed, but he had succeeded in hiding the papers first. Now Pete along with Clare, a newspaper reporter, whom Vasilli had dropped a cryptic message for Pete in her bag, become the lead characters. Suddenly they find they are now the targets. Can Pete decipher the message and keep one step ahead?

After a slightly slow start, this turns into a real page-turner with loads of twists and turns, although some of it is rather far-fetched.

This book will be published tomorrow and is available for pre-order on Amazon currently priced at £9.99 in paperback and is also available in Kindle format. A gripping read. Highly recommended. I’m certainly looking forward to book two.

About the author

Peter Aengenheister was born in Amersham, Bucks. At the age of 18, Peter became a trainee reporter at weekly The Bucks Herald in Aylesbury and the Buckingham Advertiser. Over the next three decades, Peter worked as a reporter, News Editor, Sub Editor and Editor. He worked at The Chronicle and Echo for nine years, and edited the Daventry Express and Rugby Advertiser for nine years a piece.
He then left journalism to work as a fully trained clinical hypno-therapist. Since then, with one of his colleagues, he set up a business selling LED lighting to the industrial and commercial sector. Despite writing stories on a daily basis during his 36 years in journalism, ARMOUR PIERCING is his debut novel.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterAengenheis

Plus I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition to giveaway a paperback copy of this book to one lucky winner. Open to anyone in the UK, US or Canada.