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.

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.

Marianne is an assassin. One of the best in the business. Except killing isn't her business - it's her way of getting revenge. Revenge that has been a long time coming. But there are dark forces who want to use Marianne for their own ends. Dark forces who will do whatever is necessary to acquire her skills. But what they don't know is that Marianne has a secret. A secret that could be the death of them all.

Jungle-skilled, silent, and lethal, he had killed for the Viet Cong and then for the Americans. He had watched helpless as his two eldest daughters were 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 murdered by an IRA bomb. That was when the Chinaman, denied justice, decided on revenge...and went back to war.

Two murders, thousands of miles apart: one in London, one in Bangkok. The bodies 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.

Meet John Milton. He considers himself an artisan. A craftsman. His trade is murder. Milton is the man the government sends after you when everything else has failed. Ruthless. Brilliant. Anonymous. Lethal. You wouldn't pick him out of a crowd but you wouldn't want to be on his list. In this second dip into his case files (see 1000 Yards for a further novella), Milton is sent to Italy to investigate the death of a colleague from Group 15.

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.

On their first day of training with the Metropolitan Police, new recruits Jamie, Bunny, and Tina are asked to join a team of undercover detectives, a secret unit involved in the long-term penetration of criminal gangs. Their target? One of the world’s biggest drug dealers: Den Donovan, alias "Tango One". To close in on their quarry, the three must go back into the outside world and become criminals themselves. But someone within the Met is pursuing an alternative agenda. Someone who has deliberately put their lives on the line.…

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 treacherous 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.

Alex Reeve - known as OPERATIVE 66 - is a former special-ops soldier and one of the UK's most lethal weapons. Previously a member of SC9, an elite covert unit with a remit to assassinate the country's enemies, Reeve was framed for treason and now lives a nomadic existence - as the merciless killers he once trained alongside hunt him down. For a chance of a normal life, Reeve must expose and dismantle the sinister SC9. So when a series of brutal killings in Germany have all the hallmarks of an SC9 tactic.