Showing results by author "Stephen Leather" in All Categories

This collection of stories goes back to Dan “Spider” Shepherd’s SAS days, and the missions that shaped him. From his training in the welsh hills and the jungles of Belize, through to his early missions in Sierra Leone and the Middle East, these nine stories chart his rise through the SAS, and his involvement with the elite Sabre Squadron. Along with his comrades Jimbo, McKay and Geordie, Spider puts his life on the line on active duty…and sows the seeds of his future career.

MI5 officer David White was always a good father, so when his daughters want to go to a music festival in Israel, he agrees to take them. But his daughters are killed in the Hamas massacre that left 1,400 innocent civilians dead. White is taken hostage down in the tunnels under Gaza and Dan 'Spider' Shepherd and a crack SAS team are sent in to rescue him. Back in London, White is a changed man. He wants revenge for what happened to his family and wants to kill the men who planned and financed the Hamas attacks.

Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. Working for an elite undercover squad, he has lied, cheated and conned in order to bring Britain's most wanted criminals to justice. But when a powerful drugs baron starts to kill off witnesses to his crimes, Shepherd is given his most dangerous assignment yet. He has to go undercover in a top-security prison, a world where one wrong move will mean certain death.

There's only one thing more dangerous than a corrupt cop...and that's a corrupt cop with a gun. When a group of armed police in an elite unit turns maverick and starts to rip off drug dealers at gunpoint, undercover cop Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is given his most dangerous mission so far. Shepherd is ordered to infiltrate the tight-knit team, to gain their confidence and to ultimately betray them.Facing men with guns is nothing new for the former SAS trooper, but it's the first time he's had to investigate his own. And the job couldn't have come at a worse time for him.

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.

Thailand 1996. The Year of The Rat. Pete, a young travel writer, wanders into a Bangkok go-go bar and meets the love of his life. Joy is the girl of his dreams, young, stunningly pretty, and one of the Zombie Bar's top-earning pole dancers. What follows is a roller-coaster ride of sex, drugs, 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.

The target—The Prime Minister. The assassins—hard-bitten jihadists with nothing to lose. The only man who can stop them? Dan 'Spider' Shepherd. But Shepherd's reputation is also on the line—he helped get one of the jihadists into the UK during the final days of the War in Afghanistan. Now he has to track down the man whose life he once saved. But the assassins aren't lone-wolf killers—someone much more devious is pulling their strings.

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.

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.

When supernatural detective Jack Nightingale hears about a rash of suicides across London, he realises that it's more than a coincidence. Something has come from the bowels of Hell to wreak havoc in the world, and only he can stop it. But to do that he'll have to put his own soul on the line.

When an ISIS bombmaker arrives at Heathrow Airport asking for asylum in exchange for revealing details of his paymasters, Shepherd is given the case. The bombmaker specialises in drone strikes, and homegrown jihadists that he has trained are already back in the UK, planning their attacks. But before he'll agree to talk, the terrorist insists that his wife and son are rescued from a refugee camp in Turkey. Shepherd is tasked with bringing the family back to London, but he soon discovers that dark forces are out to stop him. And if he fails, hundreds will die.

“You’re going to hell, Jack Nightingale”: They are words that ended his police career. 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 from a man who claims to be his father. It comes with a warning that Nightingale’s soul was sold at birth and a devil will come to claim it on his 33rd birthday – just three weeks away.

When Jack Nightingale learns that there is a mysterious list of children who are at risk, he takes the case, spurred on by the fact that he knows one of the names, and that makes it personal. His investigation brings him up against a demon from hell who is being used on a mission of revenge. But if Nightingale is to save the children, and his own soul, he’ll need help from an old adversary.

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.

Ten years ago, Andrea Hayes was the best master bombmaker in the business. Young, beautiful, and deadly, she was the favourite of her Irish republican masters. Then it all went wrong. Five children were killed, when disruption was all that was intended. It all became too much, and she turned away from her trade.… Now, a new Andrea Hayes lives a safe suburban life, with her loving husband and young daughter. Safe in the knowledge that her past is another country. But then her daughter is kidnapped and the past has come knocking.

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 halfway 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.

Who was Dan "Spider" Shepherd before he signed up as an undercover cop and began working for MI5? The Sandpit rewinds with an action-packed rollercoaster to his days in the SAS.... Dan Shepherd and his SAS team are sent into the badlands of Afghanistan to train the rebels who are battling Taliban fanatics. But what starts as a training mission in The Sandpit rapidly turns into a life or death struggle with Shepherd and his team very much in the firing line.

Not all terrorists are driven by religion or politics. Dan "Spider" Shepherd and his SAS team are on the trail of a terrorist whose motives are much more personal. Sabit Kusen wants revenge and doesn’t care how many innocents he kills along the way. Shepherd and his team hunt their quarry around the world - from Athens to Paris to Zurich to Singapore and on to Sydney - but the elusive Kusen is always one step ahead of them. Can Shepherd catch Sabit Kusen before he carries out his most audacious attack? And does he have what it takes to pull the trigger to end the fanatic’s reign of terror?

Teenagers are being possessed and turning into sadistic murderers. Priests can't help, nor can psychiatrists. So who is behind the demonic possessions? Jack Nightingale is called in to investigate and finds his own soul is on the line.

The daughter of an American politician has been kidnapped by white supremacists in Namibia. The kidnappers are demanding their own homeland in the heart of Africa and want to use the girl as leverage. The American government can’t agree to the demands but are reluctant to mount a high profile rescue mission. They need a deniable operation, and who better than the SAS to do the dirty work?