Terrorists 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...

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 his plans contain a fatal flaw which will be discovered only when it is much too late ...

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. And the clock is ticking . . .

'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 TIMES Who 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.

'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 Sun Should 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.

'Enthralling' Financial Times *** 'Explosive' The Sun *** 'Grabs the reader by the throat' Daily Mail Terrorists 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

'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 Sun What 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.

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 ...

THE NEW MUST-READ SPIDER SHEPHERD THRILLER 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. And the clock is ticking . . .

'I doubt if a more exciting and muscular book will come along this year' Peterborough Telegraph Money can't buy everything But 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.

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 ...

The explosive new thriller in the Spider Shepherd series Dan 'Spider' Shepherd's career path - soldier, cop, 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 on the job front, 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' 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

The explosive new thriller in the Spider Shepherd series Dan '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' 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

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.

Andrea Hayes was one of the IRA's most deadly killers. But when a misplaced bomb ripped apart a group of passing kids, she left all that behind her. Now, years later, she lives a quiet, suburban life with her husband and young daughter, and her days of violence seem a distant memory. But then her daughter is kidnapped by persons unknown, and the past comes knocking at her door . . . ********* 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

'I doubt if a more exciting and muscular book will come along this year' Peterborough Telegraph Money can't buy everything But 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.

***'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 series Sally 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 . . .

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.

'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 TIMES Who 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.

?Your sister is going to hell, Jack Nightingale.? Somehow, variations of that line keep former police negotiator Nightingale's life careening in wild, unforeseen directions. This time, it is uttered by a dead woman hanging over a staircase, her neck broken by the laundry cord she tied around it before tossing herself over the banister. But Jack and his sister have been separated since birth?How can he save someone he's never met? Nightingale goes on the hunt for the sister he never knew, but everyone he talks to about her dies horribly. It's as if someone ? or something ? is determined to keep them apart. If he's going to save her, 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 a question: is every soul worth saving? Sharp and intense, UK master Stephen Leather's second book in The Nightingale Trilogy is a taut, relentlessly paced thriller as terrifying and dark as midnight itself.

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?