Immediate Action

They were like a band of brothers...In 1983 Andy McNab was assigned to B Squadron, one of the four Sabre Squadrons of the SAS, and within it to Air Troop, otherwise known as SEVEN TROOP. This is Andy McNab's gripping account of the time he served in the company of a remarkable group of men - from the day, freshly badged, he joined them in the Malayan jungle, to the day, ten years later, that he handed in his sand-coloured beret and started a new life.

January 1991: IRAQ. Eight members of the SAS regiment embark upon a top-secret mission to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines. Under the command of Sergeant Andy McNab, they are to sever a vital underground communication link and to seek and destroy mobile Scud launchers. Their call sign: BRAVO TWO ZERO. Each laden with 15 stones of equipment, they tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. After a fierce fire fight, they are forced into evasive action. Four men are captured. Three die. Only one escapes.

Tough, resourceful, ruthless - as an SAS trooper, Nick Stone was one of the best. Now he's back on the streets. After a botched mission, the Regiment no longer want his services. But British Intelligence does - as a deniable operator. It's the dirtiest job in a very, very dirty world. In Washington, DC, it's about to get dirtier still. On the apparently routine tail of two terrorists, he discovers the bodies of an ex-SAS officer and his family. Soon he's on the run with the lone survivor of the bloodbath - a seven-year-old girl.

The No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling modern classic: A Bravo Two Zero for the Second Gulf War. They were branded as cowards and accused of being the British Special Forces Squadron that ran away from the Iraqis. But nothing could be further from the truth. Ten years on, the story of these sixty men can finally be told. In March 2003 M Squadron - an SBS unit with SAS embeds - was sent 1,000 kilometres behind enemy lines on a true mission impossible, to take the surrender of the 100,000-strong Iraqi Army 5th Corps.

April 2004: Dan Mills and his platoon of snipers flew into Southern Iraq, part of an infantry battalion sent to win hearts and minds. They were soon fighting for their lives. Back home we were told they were peacekeeping. But there was no peace to keep. Because within days of arriving in theatre, Mills and his men were caught up in the longest, most sustained firefight British troops had faced for over 50 years.

No one is born a leader. But through sheer determination and by confronting life’s challenges, Ant Middleton has come to know the meaning of true leadership. In First Man In, he shares the core lessons he’s learned over the course of his fascinating, exhilarating life. Special forces training is no walk in the park. The rules are strict, and they make sure you learn the hard way, pushing you beyond the limits of what is physically possible. There is no mercy. Even when you are bleeding and broken, to admit defeat is failure.

Camp Bastion: SAS trooper Tom Buckingham finds himself in deep trouble for taking down a renegade Afghan soldier. Instead of being proclaimed a hero, he's made a scapegoat for the incident and drummed out of the regiment. On his return to Britain, disillusioned and embittered, Tom's unique services are quickly snapped up by charismatic entrepreneur Vernon Rolt, a powerful billionaire with political ambitions, very few scruples, and a questionable agenda.

Kim Hughes is the most highly decorated bomb disposal operator serving in the British Army. He was awarded the George Cross in 2009 following a gruelling six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, during which he defused 119 improvised explosive devices, survived numerous Taliban ambushes and endured a close encounter with the Secretary of State for Defence.

Nick Stone is back in London, but if he thought he was home for a break, he's very, very wrong. Backed into a corner by a man he knows he cannot trust, ex-deniable operator Nick Stone strikes a devil's bargain. In exchange for his own safety - a life for a life - Stone is charged with locating someone who doesn't want to be found, currently hiding out in the one of the remotest corners of the UK. And for the first time in a long time, he's not operating alone.

Michael Asher served in Northern Ireland with the Paras at the height of the IRA campaigns of the 1970s. He witnessed the result of using highly motivated assault troops in 'peacekeeping operations'. His depiction of the strengths and weaknesses of the British Army's elite airborne forces comes from his personal experience of what it was like for ordinary soldiers. From the Paras to the SAS and then service with the Special Patrol Group in Northern Ireland, Michael Asher's military odyssey eventually led him to leave the forces for a new life in the Sudanese desert. 

Summer 2006, Afghanistan: an apparently deserted village, and a rapidly ticking clock... The relentless Taliban ambush which followed saw several British soldiers dead, two armoured vehicles destroyed - and Corporal of Horse Michael Flynn awarded an MC to go alongside his Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. Mick Flynn has never backed away from a challenge.

From his cage in a putrid, overcrowded Indian jail, Paul Jordan reflects on a life lived on the edge. His childhood, marred by the loss of his father and brother, produces a young man hell-bent on being the best of the best - an ambition he achieves by being selected to join the elite SAS. The Easy Day Was Yesterday is fast paced, brutally honest, raw and laced with dark humour. The core of Paul Jordan's eventful life, it shows the ability of the human spirit to survive even in the direst adversity.

Bear Grylls is a man who has always sought the ultimate in adventure. Growing up on the Isle of Wight, he was taught by his father to sail and climb at an early age. As a teenager he found identity and purpose through both mountaineering and martial arts, which led the young adventurer to the foothills of the mighty Himalaya and a grandmaster's karate training camp in Japan.

South Armagh, 1989: cheering mobs stand over the body of a British soldier. He is the ninth to have been killed by the so-called Border Fox, an IRA sniper whose activities have helped make this area of the United Kingdom the most feared killing ground in Western Europe. The British government is determined to break the tightly knit South Armagh Brigade of the IRA before more lives are lost.

A captain in 29 Commando, Johnny Mercer served in the army for 12 years. On his third tour of Afghanistan, he was a joint fires controller, with the pressurized job of bringing down artillery and air strikes in close proximity to his own troops. Based in an area of Northern Helmand that was riddled with Taliban leaders, he walked into danger with every patrol, determined to protect them. Then, one morning, in brutal close-quarter combat, everything changed....