Search results for ""author stephen leather""

Friendships forged in the heat of combat can be stronger than anything.So when SAS trooper Matt Standing is told that the former Navy SEAL who saved his life is in trouble, he doesn't hesitate to go to his aid - even if that means flying half way around the world to Los Angeles.Navy SEAL-turned-bodyguard Bobby-Ray Barnes has been accused of killing the man he was supposed to be protecting. Three other bodyguards were also killed and now Bobby-Ray is on the run.The dead client was a Russian oligarch with connections to the Kremlin. But who wanted him dead? And if Bobby-Ray wasn't the killer, who carried out the assassination and why is Bobby-Ray being framed? Standing is the only man who can answer those questions - providing he can stay alive long enough. For that he'll need the help of an old SAS friend, Dan 'Spider' Shepherd, and a ruthless network of secret service operatives. Praise for bestselling author Stephen Leather'The sheer impetus of his storytelling is damned hard to resist' Sunday Express'A master of the thriller genre' Irish Times'As tough as British thriller writers get' Irish Independent

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A heart-pounding new standalone thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Stephen Leather. 'He has the uncanny knack of producing plots that are all too real, and this is no exception' (Daily Mail on First Response)When a British Special Forces soldier goes rogue, carrying out an attack at a US army base in Syria leading to the death of two men, ex-MI5 controller Charlotte Button is hired to work out what his plan is and to take him down before he can carry it out.Charlotte puts her best man on the case - hitman Lex Harper. It's up to Lex to assemble a crack team and get to the soldier before he carries out what could be a massive terrorist attack. But Charlotte might require Lex's help with a more personal problem too . . .As ex-MI5, Charlotte holds information on thousands of the agency's dirty operations, and keeps a store of those secrets in three flash drives hidden in separate safety deposit vaults. Now someone is taking extraordinary measures to recover the secrets through Hatton Garden-style robberies. So far two vaults have been raided, and two flash drives have gone. If the third is stolen, Charlotte's life will be in jeopardy. While it's down to Lex to prevent a potential terrorist attack on British soil, Charlotte must work out who is after her and what they want.

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Pete wanders into a Bangkok bar and meets the love of his life. Joy is the girl of his dreams. What follows is a roller-coaster ride of sex, drugs, lies and deception, as Pete discovers that his very own private dancer is not all that she claims to be. And that far from being the girl of his dreams, Joy is his own personal nightmare.

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The seventh book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. Villains across London are being beaten, crippled and killed by vigilante cops. Crime rates are falling, but the powers that be want Dan 'Spider' Shepherd to bring the wave of rough justice to an end. Shepherd has always known that there are grey areas in the fight against crime. And that sometimes justice gets lost in the process.He has never been comfortable investigating cops, but working for the Serious Organised Crime Agency means that he has no choice. He has to go undercover with an elite group of officers who are at the sharp end of policing, risking their lives daily on the toughest streets in the Capital.But Shepherd has hard decisions of his own to make when his family is in the firing line.

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'Enthralling' Financial Times *** 'Explosive' The Sun *** 'Grabs the reader by the throat' Daily MailTerrorists have shot down a British helicopter in West Africa and taken the crew hostage. Their lives are on the line and the British government is refusing to negotiate. The pilot is Liam Shepherd, and only his father - Dan 'Spider' Shepherd of MI5 - can help.Shepherd and an SAS team fly out to the badlands of Mali to rescue the kidnapped Brits.But the mission takes Shepherd away from an investigation in a high security prison that is about to explode into violence. Hundreds of lives are at risk, and Shepherd is running out of time...'Exciting action thrillers. It's like being there yourself' Chris Ryan'Breath-taking pace' Shots

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'Leather's latest full-throttle thriller could hardly be more topical . . . it hurtles off the page, grabbing the reader by the throat' Daily Mail'This cracking Spider Shepherd thriller zips along like a sniper's bullet' The SunShould we bring them back?There are thousands of jihadi brides in refugee camps in the Middle East. Some of them were once British before they were stripped of their citizenship. Were they brainwashed or simply naive when they set out for Syria as teenagers? And, if they were allowed to return, would they pose a threat to our country?Spider Shepherd is about to be sent on an extraordinary mission to the Syrian border by his MI5 boss. There he will have to decide which of the women he meets is still a threat, and if not, which of them has information useful to the Secret Service and can be allowed back. His are life or death decisions.But there is one bride he must take back to the UK whatever her circumstances. She is the wife of a notorious ISIS bombmaker, Salam Jaraf. Jaraf is an asylum seeker who has information on terrorist cells in Britain. But the bombmaker will only tell MI5 what he knows if his wife and son are brought to him. However, it soon becomes obvious that hostile forces are following Spider and Mrs Jaraf across Turkey. Bringing this woman back from the warzone will become one of the most dangerous missions Spider has ever undertaken.

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The second book in the Jack Nightingale supernatural thriller series.Jack Nightingale found it hard enough to save lives when he was a cop. Now he needs to save a soul - his sister's. But to save her he has to find her and they've been separated since birth.When everyone Jack talks to about his sister dies horribly, he realises that someone, or something, is determined to keep them apart. If he's going to save his sister, he's going to have to do what he does best - negotiate. But any negotiation with the forces of darkness comes at a terrible price. And first Jack must ask himself the question: is every soul worth saving?

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The eighth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. Kidnapping is one of the cruellest crimes - lives are put at risk for cold, hard cash. But when Somali pirates seize the crew of a yacht off the coast of Africa, they bite off more than they can chew.One of the hostages has friends in high places and Spider Shepherd is put on the case. He goes deep undercover in an audacious plan to bring an end to the pirate gang's reign of terror.But as Shepherd closes in on his quarry he realises that there's much more at stake than the lives of the hostages and that the pirates are involved in a terrorist plot that will strike at the heart of London.

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Jack Solomon is a messenger of death.Working in the fractured remains of Yugoslavia, his task is to identify the victims of ethnic cleansing and to tell families that their loved ones are never coming home.Years of toiling in the killing fields have desensitised the former London policeman to the horrors of war, but when a truck containing twenty-six bodies is pulled from a lake, Solomon is unable to walk away from the case.He sets out to track down the only survivor of the massacre, a young girl on the run from the killers. Solomon's hunt for the last witness takes him from the brothels of Sarajevo to the high-stakes world of London's internet prostitution - where he will discover that the killers are closer to home than he thinks . . .*********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express'In the top rank of thriller writers' Jack Higgins

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Chris Hutchison is a man on the run.Imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, Hutch escapes from a British maximum-security prison and starts a new life in Hong Kong. But a ghost from his past catches up with him and gives him a choice: help a former terrorist break out of a Bangkok prison - or face life behind bars once more.Meanwhile, the DEA wants to nail the vicious drug warlord responsible for flooding the States with cheap heroin. And decides to use Hutch as a pawn in a deadly game.Hutch's bid for freedom takes him into the lawless killing fields of the Golden Triangle, where the scene is set for one final act of betrayal . . .***********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express 'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent

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Why does a wealthy Scottish financier set up a drugs deal with the IRA? Jeopardise his career, endanger his family and lover by tangling with the East End underworld and a ruthless mercenary? The motive is simple: revenge for a cold-blooded act of murder.His adversary is a dangerous gangland boss whose connections stretch from the Highlands to London and beyond. More than a match for a newcomer, especially when that newcomer's plans contain a fatal flaw which will be discovered only when it is much too late . . . *********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

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Stephen Leather's BESTSELLING breakthrough thriller.The Chinaman understood death.Jungle-skilled, silent and lethal, he had killed for the Viet Cong and then for the Americans. He had watched helpless when his two eldest daughters had been raped and killed by Thai pirates.Now all that was behind him. Quiet, hard-working and unassuming, he was building up his South London take-away business.Until the day his wife and youngest daughter were destroyed by an IRA bomb in a Knightsbridge department store.Then, simply but persistently, he began to ask the authorities who were the men responsible, what was being done. And was turned away, fobbed off, treated as a nuisance.Which was when the Chinaman, denied justice, decided on revenge. And went back to war.

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'Stephen Leather writes really exciting action thrillers. It's like being there yourself' CHRIS RYAN, AUTHOR OF Zero 22'The fast-paced action scenes are expertly choreographed; the description of settings - from the luxurious bars where Ankara's gangsters gather, to Dubai's glittering skyscrapers - is brisk and richly detailed' FINANCIAL TIMESWho can you trust if you can't trust the people tasked with protecting the nation?Murderous jihadists have been crossing the English Channel, passing themselves off as asylum seekers. MI5 have been keeping them under surveillance, but what starts as a simple terrorist takedown goes badly wrong and dozens of innocent civilians are killed in the heart of London.And the screw is tightened when a bomb takes out senior members of the Secret Intelligence Service.Someone within the security services has been working to their own agenda, and only Dan 'Spider' Shepherd can identify the bad apple. His search for the rogue agent takes him to Turkey and then to Dubai, where his masters order him to carry out a breathtaking act of revenge.

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'The action scenes are deftly choreographed and Standing is an engaging protagonist' Financial TimesWhat makes a good man become an assassin?A Navy SEAL has gone rogue, selling his skills to the highest bidder as a professional assassin. Ryan French no longer cares who he kills so long as the price is right. His former bosses want him taken down, but they're not prepared to get their hands dirty so they need a Brit to do the job.SAS trooper Matt "Lastman" Standing is a lethal killing machine with experience in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Plus he's worked with French in the past. It's not a mission he wants, but Standing made a bad choice in his past and it has come back to haunt him. Now he's hunting French in the lawless Wild West forests of Humboldt County, where the US produces most of its legal - and illegal - cannabis.But French isn't the only predator in the wilderness - there are Mexican cartels, Russian Mafia and Hungarian gangsters - and Standing has to overcome them all to get to his target.

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***'Thought-provoking, high-octane chase thriller with style' - Financial Times******'Leather once again delivers high-octane thrill-a-minute action that reads like a pitch for a Netflix series' - Irish Independent***The explosive new stand-alone thriller from the author of the Spider Shepherd seriesSally Page is an MI5 'footie', a junior Secret Service Agent who maintains 'legends': fake identities or footprints used by real spies. Her day consists of maintaining flats and houses where the legends allegedly live, doing online shopping, using payment, loyalty and travel cards and going on social media in their names - anything to give the impression to hostile surveillance that the legends are living, breathing individuals.One day she goes out for coffee leaving the safe house from which she and her fellow footies operate. When she comes back they have all been murdered and she barely escapes with her own life. She is on the run: but from whom she has no idea. Worse, her bosses at MI5 seem powerless to help her. To live, she will have to use all the lies and false identities she has so carefully created while discovering the truth . . .

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***'Thought-provoking, high-octane chase thriller with style' - Financial Times******'Leather once again delivers high-octane thrill-a-minute action that reads like a pitch for a Netflix series' - Irish Independent***The explosive new stand-alone thriller from the author of the Spider Shepherd seriesSally Page is an MI5 'footie', a junior Secret Service Agent who maintains 'legends': fake identities or footprints used by real spies. Her day consists of maintaining flats and houses where the legends allegedly live, doing online shopping, using payment, loyalty and travel cards and going on social media in their names - anything to give the impression to hostile surveillance that the legends are living, breathing individuals.One day she goes out for coffee leaving the safe house from which she and her fellow footies operate. When she comes back they have all been murdered and she barely escapes with her own life. She is on the run: but from whom she has no idea. Worse, her bosses at MI5 seem powerless to help her. To live, she will have to use all the lies and false identities she has so carefully created while discovering the truth . . .

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Stephen Leather's BESTSELLING breakthrough thriller, previously published as THE CHINAMAN - perfect for fans of Lee Child and James Patterson. He understood death.Jungle-skilled, silent and lethal, he had killed for the Viet Cong and then for the Americans. He had watched helpless when his two eldest daughters had been raped and killed by Thai pirates.Now all that was behind him. Quiet, hard-working and unassuming, he was building up his South London take-away business.Until the day his wife and youngest daughter were destroyed by an IRA bomb in a Knightsbridge department store.Then, simply but persistently, he began to ask the authorities who were the men responsible, what was being done. And was turned away, fobbed off, treated as a nuisance.Which was when, denied justice, he decided on revenge. And went back to war.Praise for Stephen Leather'Explores complex contemporary issues while keeping the action fast and bloody'Economist'Action and scalpel-sharp suspense' Daily Telegraph'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

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From the bestselling author of the Spider Shepherd and Jack Nightingale series comes First Response, the utterly addictive new thriller by Stephen Leather. London is under siege. Nine men in suicide vests primed to explode hold hostages in nine different locations around the city, and are ready to die for their cause.Their mission: to force the government to release jihadist prisoners from Belmarsh Prison.Their deadline: 6 p.m. Today. But the bombers are cleanskins, terrorists with no obvious link to any group, and who do not appear on any anti-terror watch list. What has brought them together on this one day to act in this way? Mo Kamran is the Superintendent in charge of the Special Crime and Operations branch of the Met. As the disaster unfolds and the SAS, armed police, and other emergency services rush to the scenes, he is tasked with preventing the biggest terrorist outrage the capital has ever known.But nothing is what it seems. And only Kamran has the big picture. Will anyone believe him?A chillingly plausible and pulse-pounding depiction of how London might be held to ransom in a concerted terrorist attack: this is thriller writing at its very best.

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He is one of the world's most ruthless terrorists, codenamed Saladin. He plans and executes devastating attacks and then, ghost-like, he disappears.Ten years ago he blew a plane out of the sky above New York - and now he's killed dozens in a London strike.But one of the latest victims is related to the acting head of MI5, who knows exactly who she wants on the case: Spider Shepherd.Dean Martin, a psychologically damaged former Navy SEAL, is the only person in the world who can identify Saladin. But Martin was killed ten years ago - wasn't he?Shepherd must find Martin and take him back to the killing fields on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Revenge on the world's most wanted terrorist is long overdue, and Shepherd is determined to be the one to deliver it . . .******************Praise for Stephen Leather'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

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A killer is murdering Goths with relish - skinning and butchering them. The cops aren't getting anywhere so Jack Nightingale's nemesis, Superintendent Chalmers, asks him for help.Nightingale discovers that the murdered Goths had one thing in common: a tattoo connected to the secretive Satanic child-sacrificing cult called the Order of Nine Angles.As Nightingale closes in on the killers, the tables are turned and he finds himself in the firing line, along with his friends and family. The Order will stop at nothing to protect their secrets and Nightingale realises that there is nothing he can do to protect himself. Nor can he run, for the Order has connections across the world. It leaves him with only one way to stop the carnage - and that's to take his own life . . .

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In what could be his highest-profile mission ever, Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is called in to prevent the assassination of a head of state on British soil. As an MI5 agent, Spider is used to going undercover, but when he's asked to assume the identity of the contract killer hired to take out President Vladimir Putin, he knows he'll become a wanted man.And things are about to get more complicated: Spider is told that his MI5 controller and close friend Charlotte Button has been running an off-the-books assassination operation, taking vengeance on the men who killed her husband. Spider owes his life to Button - but this discovery will stretch his loyalty to the limit...

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The Russian oligarchs are the world's new elite. They treat the world as their plaything, travelling without borders and living lives of unimaginable luxury without fear or restraint. But when an assassin starts killing off some of the world's richest men, an oligarch with friends in high places seeks the protection of MI5. And Spider Shepherd is placed in the firing line.But while Shepherd has to save the life of a man he neither likes nor respects, he has to deal with a face from his past. The Taliban sniper who put a bullet in his shoulder turns up alive and well and living in London.And Shepherd is in no mood to forgive or forget.

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The third book in the Jack Nightingale supernatural thriller series.What goes around, comes around. Jack Nightingale learned that as a cop and discovered that it was just as true in the world of the supernatural. His life changed forever on the day he failed to stop a young girl throwing herself to her death. Ever since, he's been haunted by thoughts that he could have done more to save her.Now her cries for help are louder than ever. Is she trapped in eternal torment? Can Nightingale put things right? Or are the forces of darkness torturing and deceiving him in order to gain the ultimate prize - his soul? Nightingale will have to face down the powers of the police, south London gangs and Hell itself to find out. And evil is closer than he thinks . . .

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The ninth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. The most wanted man in the world is dead. Now those loyal to him seek revenge.When Navy Seals track down and kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, it's obvious there was a traitor on the inside. After the false friends are revealed to be two British students, Malik and Chaudhry - former Islamic fundamentalists recruited by MI5 - they become targets themselves.Dan 'Spider' Shepherd must teach the pair how to survive undercover with al-Qaeda closing in. But Spider is not used to playing the handler. And with the line between mentor and friend beginning to blur, and a terrorist plot putting thousands of lives at stake, can he protect everyone before it's too late?

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The fifth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series.Former SAS trooper turned undercover cop Dan Spider Shepherd knows there are no easy solutions in the war against terrorism. But when a killer starts to target pardoned IRA terrorists, Shepherd has to put his life on the line to protect his former enemies. While he is undercover in Belfast, a grief-stricken Saudi whose two sons died under torture in the name of the War on Terror is planning to avenge their deaths by striking out at two people close to Shepherd. As the Muslim assassin closes in on his prey, Shepherd realises that the only way to save lives is to become a killer himself.

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***Now a motion picture, out 5th March 2018*** In different parts of London, three recruits prepare for their first day at the Metropolitan Police's training centre at Hendon. All three had succeeded in getting into the police in spite of weaknesses. But on their first day, the assistant commissioner announces that he wants them to join a team of undercover detectives. Their brief? To become criminals; to work their way up through whatever criminal organisations they can get access to, and to collate evidence against the criminals they come across. Their target? One of the world's biggest drug dealers, Den Donovan, alias 'Tango One' - number one on HM Customs and Excise's List of most wanted criminals. Three years later all the recruits are getting close to their target. Too close, perhaps, to remember the rules . . .***********Praise for Stephen Leather'[Leather] has the uncanny knack of producing plots that are all too real' Daily Mail'Let Spider draw you into his web, you won't regret it' - Sun

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'Enthralling' Financial Times *** 'Explosive' The Sun *** 'Grabs the reader by the throat' Daily MailTerrorists have shot down a British helicopter in West Africa and taken the crew hostage. Their lives are on the line and the British government is refusing to negotiate. The pilot is Liam Shepherd, and only his father - Dan 'Spider' Shepherd of MI5 - can help.Shepherd and an SAS team fly out to the badlands of Mali to rescue the kidnapped Brits.But the mission takes Shepherd away from an investigation in a high security prison that is about to explode into violence. Hundreds of lives are at risk, and Shepherd is running out of time...'From the geopolitical concerns of African conflicts all the way to the sociological study of prisons in UK, there's so much in this book to entice your curiosity and your enthusiasm for knowledge in addition to offering the excitement of reading a fast-paced thriller. You can't afford to sit this one out. Clean Kill is brilliance personified' Best Thriller Books'Exciting action thrillers. It's like being there yourself' Chris Ryan'Breath-taking pace' Shots

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When you're caught between two evils, only the most decisive will survive . . .A violent South London gang will be destroyed if Dan 'Spider' Shepherd can gather enough evidence against them while posing as a ruthless hitman. What he doesn't know is that his work as an undercover agent for MI5 is about to intersect with the biggest terrorist operation ever carried out on British soil.Only weeks before Shepherd witnessed a highly skilled IS sniper escape from a targeted missile strike in Syria. But never in his wildest dreams did he expect to next come across the shooter in a grimy East London flat.Spider's going to have to proceed with extreme caution if he is to prevent the death of hundreds of people, but at the same time, when the crucial moment comes he knows he will have to act decisively. The clock is ticking and only he stands between us and Armageddon . . .'Let Spider draw you into his web, you won't regret it' - SunWhat readers are saying about DARK FORCES'Palpable excitement' - 5 STARS'I would recommend the Spider series to anyone who can read. They are THAT good!' - 5 STARS'Possibly Stephen Leather's best yet' - 5 STARS' Brilliantly written and highly recommended' - 5 STARS'Just brilliant' - 5 STARS

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The assassin: the world's most successful contract killer. An anonymous professional with a unique calling card - one bullet in the head and one in the chest for each and every target.The Judas goat: an ex-member of the SAS, Mike Cramer is the perfect sacrificial bait. When the FBI discover the next name on the assassin's hitlist, Cramer is set up to take his place.The wild card: Cramer's past has caught up with him. Ex-IRA extremist Dermot Lynch blames Cramer for his lover's death - and he's out for revenge.As Cramer trains for the most dangerous mission of his career, Lynch hunts down his sworn enemy. And the unknown assassin silently closes in on his target. The players are in position for the final deadly game . . .***********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express'In the top rank of thriller writers' Jack Higgins

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The plan is so complex, the target so well protected that the three snipers have to rehearse the killing in the seclusion of the Arizona desert.Cole Howard of the FBI knows he has only days to prevent the audacious assassination. But he doesn't know who the target is. Or where the crack marksmen will strike.Former SAS sergeant Mike Cramer is also on the trail, infiltrating the Irish community in New York as he tracks down Mary Hennessy, the ruthless killer who tore his life apart.Unless Cramer and Howard agree to co-operate, the world will witness the most spectacular terrorist coup of all time ...

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'I doubt if a more exciting and muscular book will come along this year' Peterborough Telegraph Money can't buy everythingBut it can buy revenge Can a doctor take lives instead of saving them?British doctor Raj Patel puts his own life on the line to treat the injured in war-torn Syria. His medical skills help casualties survive against all the odds. But Raj needs to rely on a completely different set of skills when he is taken hostage in a dangerous case of mistaken identity.Billionaire big-game hunter Jon van der Sandt is driven by revenge - his family have been killed by jihadist terrorists and he wants his vengeance up close and personal. He has hired ex Special Forces hard men to snatch the ISIS killers from the desert and transport them halfway across the world to the vast wilderness of his American estate.But they grab Raj by mistake, and once the killing begins it's too late to plead mistaken identity. To survive, he'll have to become as ruthless a killer as the man who is hunting him.

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He hunts. He kills. He burnsVicky Lewis is a force to be reckoned with: not yet thirty and already crew manager in the London Fire Brigade, she's destined for great things.But when she enters a burning building to save a man's life and leaves it with catastrophic injuries, all that changes. She's shunted over to the Fire Investigation Unit, where she's forced to team up with cantankerous veteran Des Farmer, aka the Grouch.When Vicky stumbles across the Grouch's off-the-books investigation into the fiery deaths of a series of young, blonde women, she decides to join him in his search for the truth. The answer is close - perhaps too close. Vicky's already been burnt once, and now she's playing with fire . . .************PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

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'Stephen Leather writes really exciting action thrillers. It's like being there yourself' CHRIS RYAN, AUTHOR OF Zero 22'The fast-paced action scenes are expertly choreographed; the description of settings - from the luxurious bars where Ankara's gangsters gather, to Dubai's glittering skyscrapers - is brisk and richly detailed' FINANCIAL TIMESWho can you trust if you can't trust the people tasked with protecting the nation?Murderous jihadists have been crossing the English Channel, passing themselves off as asylum seekers. MI5 have been keeping them under surveillance, but what starts as a simple terrorist takedown goes badly wrong and dozens of innocent civilians are killed in the heart of London.And the screw is tightened when a bomb takes out senior members of the Secret Intelligence Service.Someone within the security services has been working to their own agenda, and only Dan 'Spider' Shepherd can identify the bad apple. His search for the rogue agent takes him to Turkey and then to Dubai, where his masters order him to carry out a breathtaking act of revenge.

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'Leather's latest full-throttle thriller could hardly be more topical . . . it hurtles off the page, grabbing the reader by the throat' Daily Mail'This cracking Spider Shepherd thriller zips along like a sniper's bullet' The SunShould we bring them back?There are thousands of jihadi brides in refugee camps in the Middle East. Some of them were once British before they were stripped of their citizenship. Were they brainwashed or simply naive when they set out for Syria as teenagers? And, if they were allowed to return, would they pose a threat to our country?Spider Shepherd is about to be sent on an extraordinary mission to the Syrian border by his MI5 boss. There he will have to decide which of the women he meets is still a threat, and if not, which of them has information useful to the Secret Service and can be allowed back. His are life or death decisions.But there is one bride he must take back to the UK whatever her circumstances. She is the wife of a notorious ISIS bombmaker, Salam Jaraf. Jaraf is an asylum seeker who has information on terrorist cells in Britain. But the bombmaker will only tell MI5 what he knows if his wife and son are brought to him. However, it soon becomes obvious that hostile forces are following Spider and Mrs Jaraf across Turkey. Bringing this woman back from the warzone will become one of the most dangerous missions Spider has ever undertaken.

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Working undercover is all about trust - getting the target to trust you and then betraying them in order to bring them to justice.But what do you do when you believe an undercover cop has crossed the line and aligned herself with the international drugs smuggler she was supposed to be targeting?When Lisa Wilson stops passing on intelligence about her target, MI5 sends in Dan 'Spider' Shepherd to check that she's on the straight and narrow.Now the lives of two undercover operatives are on the line.***********Praise for Stephen Leather'[Leather] has the uncanny knack of producing plots that are all too real' Daily Mail'Let Spider draw you into his web, you won't regret it' - Sun

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The first book in the Jack Nightingale supernatural thriller series.'You're going to hell, Jack Nightingale': They are words that ended his career as a police negotiator. Now Jack's a struggling private detective - and the chilling words come back to haunt him.Nightingale's life is turned upside down the day that he inherits a mansion with a priceless library; it comes from a man who claims to be his father, and it comes with a warning. That Nightingale's soul was sold at birth and a devil will come to claim it on his thirty-third birthday - just three weeks away.Jack doesn't believe in Hell, probably doesn't believe in Heaven either. But when people close to him start to die horribly, he is led to the inescapable conclusion that real evil may be at work. And that if he doesn't find a way out he'll be damned in hell for eternity.

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The sixth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. Mickey and Mark Moore are Ordinary Decent Criminals - hard men who live by their own code and leaders of a gang that has made millions at the point of a gun. But when Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is sent to infiltrate the tightly-knit team of bank robbers, he discovers that he has more in common with them then he first thought. And that perhaps being a career criminal isn't the worst thing in the world. As Shepherd and his Serious Organised Crime Agency colleagues plot the downfall of the Moore brothers, a more sinister threat stalks the streets of London. A group of home-grown Islamic fundamentalist fanatics embark on a campaign of terror the like of which Britain has never seen. Car bombs and beheadings are only the prelude of what they have planned. And Shepherd is the only man who can stop them.

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The fourth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series.Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. It goes with the turf when you're an undercover cop. Now working for the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Shepherd is pitting his wits against the toughest criminals in the country. But when the man who once saved his life is kidnapped in the badlands of Iraq, thrown into a basement and threatened with execution, Shepherd has to decide whether his loyalties lie with his country, his career, or his friend. Shepherd and his former SAS colleagues realise that the hostage has been abandoned by the Government and that officially nothing is being done to rescue him. And with the execution deadline only days away, Shepherd knows that the only way to stop his friend being murdered is to put himself in the firing line in the most dangerous city in the world - Baghdad.

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Hong Kong. The British administration is preparing to hand the capitalist colony back to Communist China with the minimum of fuss.Colonel Joel Tyler, however, has other plans for the British colony - plans that involve four Vietnam War veterans and a spectacular mission making use of their unique skills.But while the vets are preparing to take the country by storm, their paymaster, Anthony Chung, puts the final touches to an audacious betrayal. The future of Hong Kong is at stake . . .*********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express'In the top rank of thriller writers' Jack Higgins

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'The action scenes are deftly choreographed and Standing is an engaging protagonist' Financial Times'The quick-fire pace of a classic Leather guys-with-guns thriller that again hits the target' The SunWhat makes a good man become an assassin?A Navy SEAL has gone rogue, selling his skills to the highest bidder as a professional assassin. Ryan French no longer cares who he kills so long as the price is right. His former bosses want him taken down, but they're not prepared to get their hands dirty so they need a Brit to do the job.SAS trooper Matt "Lastman" Standing is a lethal killing machine with experience in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Plus he's worked with French in the past. It's not a mission he wants, but Standing made a bad choice in his past and it has come back to haunt him. Now he's hunting French in the lawless Wild West forests of Humboldt County, where the US produces most of its legal - and illegal - cannabis.But French isn't the only predator in the wilderness - there are Mexican cartels, Russian Mafia and Hungarian gangsters - and Standing has to overcome them all to get to his target.

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The SAS are used to deaths during combat - it goes with the turf. But when one of their own is said to have committed suicide in Thailand, red flags are raised. Pete Green wasn't the sort of soldier who would ever take his own life - and no one is more sure of that than his twin brother, Davie. Davie is determined to fly to the Land Of Smiles to find out what really happened to his twin brother. But if he is going to find out the truth he'll need help - the sort of help only SAS Sergeant Matt Standing can provide. But soon after they arrive they come under attack, leaving Standing to investigate on his own. There are clearly people who want to shut down all enquiries and Standing knows he will have to use all his SAS jungle skills to survive. This will be the toughest of assignments but nothing will come between him and the truth ...

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The explosive new thriller in the Spider Shepherd seriesDan ''Spider'' Shepherd''s career path - soldier, policeman, MI5 officer - has always put a strain on his family. So he is far from happy to learn that MI5 is using teenagers as informants. Parents are being kept in the dark and Shepherd fears that the children are being exploited.As an undercover specialist, Shepherd is tasked with protecting a 15-year-old schoolboy who is being used to gather evidence against violent drug dealers and a right-wing terrorist group. But when the boy''s life is threatened, Shepherd has no choice but to step in and take the heat.And while Shepherd''s problems mount up at work, he has even greater problems closer to home. His son Liam has fallen foul of the Serbian Mafia and if Shepherd doesn''t intervene, Liam will die.******************Praise for Stephen Leather''A master of the thriller genre''

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Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line - for his friends and for his job with MI5. So when one of his former apprentices is kidnapped in the badlands of Pakistan, Shepherd doesn't hesitate to join a rescue mission.But when the plan goes horribly wrong, Shepherd ends up in the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists. His SAS training is of little help as his captors beat and torture him. Shepherd's MI5 controller Charlotte Button is determined to get her man out of harm's way, but to do that she's going to have to break all the rules. Her only hope is to bring in America's finest - the elite SEALs who carried out Operation Neptune Spear - in a do-or-die operation to rescue the captives.

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Two murders, thousands of miles apart: one in London, one in Bangkok.The bodies are brutally mutilated, an ace of spades impaled upon their chests. In Washington, a US senator receives photographs of the corpses. And realises that his past has come back to haunt him.Nick Wright is the detective trying to solve the mystery of the double killing. His hunt for a motive takes him to the Vietnam, where the American tunnel rats fought the dirtiest battle of the war against the Viet Cong. But his search places him in grave danger with a killer determined to protect the secrets of the tunnels. At whatever cost . . .************PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

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The SAS are used to deaths during combat - it goes with the turf. But when one of their own is said to have committed suicide in Thailand, red flags are raised. Pete Green wasn't the sort of soldier who would ever take his own life - and no one is more sure of that than his twin brother, Davie. Davie is determined to fly to the Land Of Smiles to find out what really happened to his twin brother. But if he is going to find out the truth he'll need help - the sort of help only SAS Sergeant Matt Standing can provide. But soon after they arrive they come under attack, leaving Standing to investigate on his own. There are clearly people who want to shut down all enquiries and Standing knows he will have to use all his SAS jungle skills to survive. This will be the toughest of assignments but nothing will come between him and the truth ...

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He hunts. He kills. He burnsVicky Lewis is a force to be reckoned with: not yet thirty and already crew manager in the London Fire Brigade, she's destined for great things.But when she enters a burning building to save a man's life and leaves it with catastrophic injuries, all that changes. She's shunted over to the Fire Investigation Unit, where she's forced to team up with cantankerous veteran Des Farmer, aka the Grouch.When Vicky stumbles across the Grouch's off-the-books investigation into the fiery deaths of a series of young, blonde women, she decides to join him in his search for the truth. The answer is close - perhaps too close. Vicky's already been burnt once, and now she's playing with fire . . .************PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

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In Jack Nightingale's world - where reality and the occult collide - sometimes the only way to fight evil is with evil.A farmer walks into a school and shoots eight children dead before turning the gun on himself. It's a harrowing but straightforward case - until police search the man's farm and unearth evidence of dark Satanic practices. When the perpetrator's brother approaches Nightingale, adamant that his brother was set up, it's clear that something even more sinister lurks at the heart of the case.And there are dark forces elsewhere. A young girl miraculously returns to life, claiming she's spoken to those from beyond the grave. Those in contact with her are dying hideous deaths . . . forcing Jack Nightingale to make the hardest decision he's ever faced.

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