Former soldier. Ex-copper. Current man on the edge. Shunned by his old colleagues, and dividing his time between a dead-end job and the bottom of a whisky bottle, former Police Scotland detective superintendent Bob Hoon’s life is a mess. Then an old face from Hoon’s Special Forces days turns up asking for help: His teenage daughter has been missing for months, the police have drawn a blank, and he needs the kind of help that only Hoon can provide. And besides, Hoon owes him one.

Alan Brodie, a highly decorated former Special Forces operative in the British army, is a trained killer with extensive experience in undercover black ops in the deadly battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other deniable war zones. Retired from the military and now working in the private security sector, Brodie has just agreed to buy a beach front bar/restaurant in the Almeria region of Spain.

Battered war correspondent John Bailey is a man living on the edge. He’s haunted by nightmares of being kidnapped and tortured in Iraq, and he’s drinking too much to drown the memories. As he battles to get his life back together, a story breaks that will force him back into the spotlight—and into the crosshairs of a deadly international player.

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.

US Marshal Arliss Cutter is a born tracker. Raised in the swamplands of Florida, he honed his skills in the military, fought in the Middle East, and worked three field positions for Marshal Services. When it comes to tracking someone down - or taking someone out - Cutter's the best. But his newest assignment is taking him out of his comfort zone to southeast Alaska. Cold, dark, uninhabited forests that are often shrouded in fog. And it's the kind of case that makes his blood run cold.