5ive Guys FC

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A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

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Mark Bowden

Already winning acclaim as one of the best accounts of combat ever written, Black Hawk Down is a minute-by-minute, heart-stopping account of the 1993 raid on Mogadishu, Somalia. Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 3 1993, 140 elite US Soldiers abseiled from helicopters into a teeming market neighbourhood in the heart of the city. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take them about an hour. 
 
Instead, they were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile city, fighting for their lives against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. Two of their high-tech helicopters were shot out of the sky. When the unit was rescued the following morning, eighteen American soldiers were dead and more than seventy badly injured. The Somali toll was far worse - more than five hundred killed and over a thousand injured. 
 
Authoritative, gripping, and insightful, Black Hawk Down is destined to become a classic of war reporting. It is already the most accurate, detailed account of modern combat ever written.

Black Hawk Down

James Holland

'James Holland is the best of the new generation of WW2 historians.' Sebastian Faulks 
'Holland's skill lies in bringing these warriors to life with vivid prose.' The Times 
Shortlisted for the 2021 British Army Military Book of the Year 
_________________________________________________ 
This is the story of the biggest seaborne landing in history. 
 
Codenamed Operation HUSKY, the assault on Sicily on 10 July 1943 remains the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted. That day, over 160,000 Allied troops were dropped from the sky or came ashore to begin the fight for Europe. 
 
The subsequent thirty-eight-day Battle for Sicily was one of the most dramatic of the entire war, involving daring raids by special forces, deals with the Mafia, attacks across mosquito-infested plains and perilous assaults up almost sheer faces of rock and scree. 
 
Made worse by virulent disease and extreme heat, the Allies also had to fight their way across an island of unforgiving landscape and limited infrastructure against a German foe who would not give up. 
Victory would signal the beginning of the end of the War in the West. From here on, the noose began to tighten around the neck of Nazi Germany. The coalition between the United States and Britain finally came of age. And it was a crucial dry run for Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy on D-Day a year later.

Sicily '43

A Times Book of the Year

Rowland White

'Utterly brilliant: a fantastically exciting book... This really does read like the best kind of thriller. His best book yet' 
James Holland, author of Normandy '44 
 
April 1982. Argentina invades the Falkland Islands. 
In response, Britain despatches a naval task force. Eight thousand miles from home, its fate hinges on just twenty Sea Harriers against the two hundred-strong might of the Argentine Air Force. 
 
The odds against them are overwhelming. 
The MoD's own estimates suggest that half the Harriers will be lost in the opening days of the conflict. They need backup. Within three weeks 809 Naval Air Squadron is reformed, trained and heading south, ready for war. 
 
Not since World War Two had so much been expected of such a small band of pilots.

Harrier 809

Britain’s Legendary Jump Jet and the Untold Story of the Falklands War

Jason Fox

THE EXTRAORDINARY SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. 
 
Take control of your life, build resilience and learn to thrive in any situation with the powerful and inspiring new book from the number one bestselling author of Battle Scars. 
 
In Life Under Fire, ex-Special Forces Sergeant Jason Fox shows you how to build the strength of mind and the resilience of an elite soldier. 
 
Recounting stories from high-stakes operations and expeditions, Foxy draws on the practices of the British military and the skills he developed during his career to show how to respond positively to life's challenges. Using battle-tested techniques, he explains how to find true grit in life's difficult moments, and how to ensure you have the inner strength to thrive in any environment. 
 
Whether you're under emotional pressure or facing physical challenges, this book will equip you with the tools you need to overcome obstacles and excel in adversity.

Life Under Fire

The Sunday Times Bestseller - Build Inner Strength and Thrive Under Pressure

How to Build Inner Strength and Thrive Under Pressure

Stanley Christopherson

‘An astonishing record...There is no other wartime diary that can match the scope of these diaries’ James Holland 
 
‘An outstanding contribution to the literature of the Second World War’Professor Gary Sheffield 
 
From the outbreak of war in September 1939 to the smouldering ruins of Berlin in 1945, via Tobruk, El Alamein, D-Day and the crossing of the Rhine, An Englishman at War is a unique first-person account of the Second World War. 
Stanley Christopherson’s regiment, the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, went to war as amateurs and ended up one of the most experienced, highly trained and most valued armoured units in the British Army. 
 
A junior officer at the beginning of the war, Christopherson became the commanding officer of the regiment soon after the D-Day landings. What he and his regiment witnessed presents a unique overview of one of the most cataclysmic events in world history and gives an extraordinary insight, through tragedy and triumph, into what it felt like to be part of the push for victory.

An Englishman at War: The Wartime Diaries of Stanley Christopherson DSO MC & Bar 1939-1945

'A devastating new account..Holland knows his stuff when it comes to military matters' Daily Mail, Book of the Week 
'A superb account of the invasion that deserves immense praise. To convey the human drama of Normandy requires great knowledge and sensitivity. Holland has both in spades' The Times 
________________ 
 
Renowned World War Two historian James Holland presents an entirely new perspective on one of the most important moments in recent history, unflinchingly examining the brutality and violence that characterised the campaign. 
 
D-Day and the 76 days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed have come to be seen as a defining episode in the Second World War. Its story has been endlessly retold, and yet it remains a narrative burdened by both myth and assumed knowledge. 
 
In this reexamined history, James Holland presents a broader overview, one that challenges much of what we think we know about D-Day and the Normandy campaign. The sheer size and scale of the Allies' war machine ultimately dominates the strategic, operational and tactical limitations of the German forces. 
 
Drawing on unseen archives and testimonies from around the world and introducing a cast of eye-witnesses including foot soldiers, tank men, fighter pilots and more, James Holland's epic telling profoundly recalibrates our understanding of its true place in the tide of human history. 
 
The new, sweeping World War II book from James Holland, THE SAVAGE STORM, is available now.

Normandy ‘44

D-Day and the Battle for France

The epic Sunday Times bestseller

Andy McNab

Sergeant Andy McNab recounts the story of the top secret mission that would reveal the secrets of the SAS to the world for the first time. 
 
Their location: Iraq 
Their mission: to sever a vital enemy underground communication link, to find and destroy mobile Scud launchers 
Their call sign: Bravo Two Zero 
 
When eight members of the elite SAS regiment embark on a highly covert operation, they are each laden with 15 stones of equipment, needing to tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. They engage in a fierce battle. They escape on foot to the Syrian border. Three men die. One escapes. 
But four men are captured. For them, the worst is yet to come. Delivered to Baghdad, they are tortured with a savagery for which not even their intensive SAS training has prepared them… 
 
This is a story of superhuman courage, strength, endurance and dark humour in the face of overwhelming odds. It shows just how much it takes to be a member of the SAS. 
_____________________________________________ 
‘The best account yet of the SAS in action’ Sunday Times 
‘One of the best books to emerge from the first Gulf War … Magnificent’ Independent on Sunday

Bravo Two Zero

The original SAS story

the classic true story from an SAS hero

From the top ten bestselling author of Normandy 44 and Sicily 43 
 
The Second World War is the most cataclysmic and violent sequence of events in recent times. But for the past seven decades, our understanding of it has relied upon conventional wisdom, propaganda and an interpretation skewed by the information available. James Holland has spent over twelve years conducting new research, interviewing survivors, visiting battlefields and archives that have never before been so accessible and challenging too-long-held assumptions about the war that shaped our world. 
 
In Germany Ascendant, the first part of this ground-breaking new history, James Holland introduces the war, beginning with the lead-up to its outbreak in 1939 and taking us up to mid-1941 as the Nazis prepared to unleash Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia. To tell the real story, he weaves together the experiences of dozens of individuals, from civilians and soldiers, to sailors, pilots, leading military strategists, industrialists and heads of state, and uncovers the strategy, tactics and events that informed not only the military aspects of the war but also the economic, political, and social aspects too. 
 
The War in the West is a truly monumental history of the war on land, in the air, and at sea. In it, James Holland has created a captivating and epic narrative which redefines and enhances our understanding of one of the most significant conflicts in history.

The War in the West - A New History

Volume 1: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941

From Hitler's invasion of Russia, America's entry into the conflict and the devastating Thousand Bomber Raids over Germany, to the long grinding struggle in the deserts of North Africa and the crucial Battle of the Atlantic, the middle passage of the Second World War was all about turning back the Nazi tide. 
 
These catalytic moments would come to define the course of the war and its outcome. They encompass the most vicious fighting, the most hair-raising strategy and the most breathtaking bravery. Across the battlefronts on land, sea and air, to the streets, fields and factories of Britain, America, Africa and Europe, Holland shows, in his own dramatic and compelling style, how the fortunes of war were changed and what happened when the Allies were finally able to fight back . . . 
 
'Impeccably researched and superbly written... Holland's fascinating sage offers a mixture of captivating new research and well-considered revisionism' Observer 
 
'Exceptional... Holland's success is built in part on an engaging writing stule and in part on a genuinely fresh approach to events' Wall Street Journal 
 
'The best of the new generation of WW2 historians' Sebastian Faulks

The War in the West: A New History

Volume 2: The Allies Fight Back 1941-43

THE EXTRAORDINARY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER. A SEARINGLY HONEST ACCOUNT OF A LIFE TORN APART BY WAR. 
 
'The most important book you’ll ever read… Battle Scars will save lives.' TOM MARCUS 
'A vivid, searing account of a life at war.’ BEAR GRYLLS 
‘A must read.’ ANT MIDDLETON 
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What happens when you become your own enemy? How do you keep on fighting when life itself no longer feels worth fighting for? 
 
After more than two decades of active duty in the Special Forces, Jason Fox was diagnosed with complex PTSD, forcing him to leave the military brotherhood and confront the hard reality of what follows. 
 
Battle Scars tells the story of Fox’s career as an elite operator, from the gunfights, hostage rescues, daring escapes and heroic endeavours that defined his service, to the very different kind of battle that awaited him at home. 
 
Unflinchingly honest, Battle Scars is a breathtaking account of Special Forces soldiering: a chronicle of operational bravery, and of superhuman courage on and off the battlefield. 
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What readers are saying: 
 
‘An absolute must-read’ ***** Reader review 
‘This outstanding book and its contents will save lives’ ***** Reader review 
‘Unforgettable, magnificent and utterly inspiring’ ***** Reader review 
‘Amazing and truly humbling…This book is incredible’ ***** Reader review 
‘A remarkable life story from an equally remarkable man’ ***** Reader review 
‘Courageous…I simply could not put this down’ ***** Reader review 
‘A mental health must read’ ***** Reader review

Battle Scars

A Story of War and All That Follows

The Sunday Times bestseller

____________________ 
 
‘As vivid and compelling as the best adventure thriller, and a fitting tribute to a small band of men who became heroes’ ANDY MCNAB 
 
‘Gripping, revealing and extraordinarily well-researched, this is a riveting new account of a little known but crucial war’ SIR RANULPH FIENNES 
____________________ 
 
Dawn. 19 July 1972. A force of nearly three hundred heavily armed, well-trained guerrillas launches a surprise attack on the small fishing village of Mirbat. All that stands in their way is a troop of just nine SAS, aided only by an elite band of fighter pilots overhead. 
 
Two years earlier a Communist rebellion had threatened the Arabian Peninsula, in the strategically critical Sultanate of Oman. Following a covert intelligence mission, 22 SAS deployed their largest ever assault force against the rebels. 
 
But this was to be a bitter and hard-fought campaign culminating the Battle of Mirbat which would become a defining moment for the Regiment. Their heroism that day would remain part of the SAS legend for ever.

SAS: Storm Front

The Storming Bestseller from the Author of Harrier 809

'James Holland is a master' BBC History 
 
It was to be the battle to end the air war once and for all. 
 
During the third week of February 1944, the combined Allied air forces launched their first-ever round-the-clock bomber offensive against Germany. 
 
The aim was to smash the main factories and production centres of the Luftwaffe and at the same time draw the German fighter force up into the air and into battle. 
 
Big Week is the knife-edge story of bomber against flak gun and fighter, but also, crucially, fighter against fighter. Following the fortunes of pilots and aircrew from both sides, this is a blistering narrative of one of the most critical periods of the entire war. Big Week was the largest air battle ever witnessed, but it has been largely forgotten – until now.

Big Week

The Biggest Air Battle of World War Two

Tamer Elnoury

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
The gripping true story of the undercover agent risking his life to fight terrorism 
 
Their aim was to kill as many people as possible. 
His mission was to stop them. 
 
A terrorist plot to kill hundreds of innocent people. 
An undercover agent posing as a wealthy Al-Qaeda sympathiser. 
A race against time to gain the terrorists’ trust and bring them down. Before it’s too late… 
In the aftermath of 9/11, long-time undercover FBI agent Tamer Elnoury joined an elite counterterrorism unit. Its mission: to infiltrate terror cells, gain detailed knowledge of their networks and bring them successfully to justice. Writing under a pseudonym, Tamer Elnoury here tells the hair-raising true story of life undercover, risking his life to keep us safe.

Terrorist Hunter

John Nixon

A riveting, revealing and news-making account of the CIA's interrogation of Saddam, written by the CIA agent who conducted the questioning. 
 
 In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. Beset by body-double rumors and false alarms during a nine-month search, the Bush administration needed positive identification of the prisoner before it could make the announcement that would rocket around the world. 
 At the time, John Nixon was a senior CIA leadership analyst who had spent years studying the Iraqi dictator. Called upon to make the official ID, Nixon looked for telltale scars and tribal tattoos and asked Hussein a list of questions only he could answer. The man was indeed Saddam Hussein, but as Nixon learned in the ensuing weeks, both he and America had greatly misunderstood just who Saddam Hussein really was. 
 Debriefing the President presents an astounding, candid portrait of one of our era’s most notorious strongmen. Nixon, the first man to conduct a prolonged interrogation of Hussein after his capture, offers expert insight into the history and mind of America’s most enigmatic enemy. After years of parsing Hussein’s leadership from afar, Nixon faithfully recounts his debriefing sessions and subsequently strips away the mythology surrounding an equally brutal and complex man. His account is not an apology, but a sobering examination of how preconceived ideas led Washington policymakers—and Tony Blair's government —astray. Unflinching and unprecedented, Debriefing the President exposes a fundamental misreading of one of the modern world’s most central figures and presents a new narrative that boldly counters the received account.

Debriefing the President

The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein

Mike Rossiter

In June 1941 the Ark Royal won one of Britain's most famous naval victories. The German destroyer, Bismarck, had been ravaging the British fleet in the Atlantic. Sailing through a ferocious storm the Ark Royal tracked the Bismarck. A dozen swordfish bombers took off from her deck and pounded shell after shell into the German battleship, sending her to the ocean floor. It was a signal victory that resonated around the world. Hitler, furious at the loss of the German fleet's flagship, demanded that the Ark Royal be destroyed at whatever cost. 
 
HMS Ark Royal is one of the Royal Navy's most iconic ships. When she was launched in 1938 she was one of the most sophisticated weapons at the disposal of British military command. The aircraft carrier was the latest, and soon to be one of the most feared, developments in naval warfare. In her first two years of operation the Ark Royal survived countless attacks, and was considered one of the luckiest ships in the Navy. 
 
But her air of invincibility was to prove wishful thinking. Within one month of sinking the Bismarck, the Ark Royal too was destroyed while sailing off the coast of Gibraltar. And there she has rested, one kilometre below the surface of the Mediterranean, until her wreck was discovered by Mike Rossiter in 2004. 
 
In gripping detail, and using the testimony of survivors of the sinking and men who lived, flew and fought on the Ark Royal, Mike Rossiter tells the remarkable story of the life and legend of this most iconic of ships. Also, and for the first time, he reveals the story of the quest to discover the wreck of this naval legend.

Ark Royal

Sailing Into Glory

SURVIVOR STORIES FROM DUNKIRK, NOW THE SUBJECT OF A MAJOR FILM FROM CHRISTOPHER NOLAN 
 
When Britain declared war against Germany in September 1939, thousands of young men sailed across the English Channel to fight for their country. Among them were the seven soldiers who share their stories in this book. Some joined up out of patriotism, others for adventure or the prospect of a secure wage. They were fit, trained and proud to wear the armband of the British Expeditionary Forces. 
 
 For many, the first months were strangely peaceful, but when the Germans invaded in May 1940 they advanced with shocking speed. The German armoured columns sliced through neutral Holland and Belgium. The French Army collapsed and within a week the soldiers of the BEF were forced to retreat. Fighting tough and bloody rearguard actions, they endured relentless shelling and fearsome dive-bomb attacks. Constantly on the move, and facing a German onslaught on three fronts, they were soon exhausted, hungry and low on ammunition. They headed finally to their one chance of salvation: the beaches of Dunkirk. 
 
 Mike Rossiter tells the stories of seven veterans who went through a hellish baptism of fire in the first battles on the front line, and fought in the last-ditch defence of Dunkirk. They saw their comrades bombed and drowned off the beaches. Their accounts give us a fascinating and privileged insight into the reality of the war and what it was really like to face the German Blitzkrieg in 1940. They take us from the confident, idyllic days of the phoney war in the French countryside to the sudden shock of battle, from the fear and confusion of retreat to the wait for an uncertain rescue. These are the compelling stories of seven men who are proud to say I Fought at Dunkirk.

I Fought at Dunkirk

Seven Veterans Remember Their Fight For Salvation

Martin Pearce

'I cannot think of a better biography of a spy chief' 
Richard Davenport-Hines, The Spectator 
 
Sir Maurice Oldfield was one of the most important British spies of the Cold War era. A farmer’s son from a provincial grammar school who found himself accidentally plunged into the world of espionage, Sir Maurice was the first Chief of MI6 who didn’t come to the role via the traditional public school and Oxbridge route. 
 
Oldfield was the voice of British Intelligence in Washington at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of JFK, and was largely responsible for keeping the UK out of the Vietnam War. Working his way to the top of the secret service, he took on the job of rebuilding confidence in the British Secret Service in the wake of the Philby, Burgess and Maclean spy scandals. 
 
This is the fascinating life story, told in detail for the first time, of a complex, likable character as well as a formidable intelligence chief.

Spymaster

The Life of Britain's Most Decorated Cold War Spy and Head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield

On 12th April 1981 a revolutionary new spacecraft blasted off from Florida on her maiden flight. NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia was the most advanced flying machine ever built – the high watermark of post-war aviation development. A direct descendant of the record-breaking X-planes the likes of which Chuck Yeager had tested in the skies over the Mojave Desert, Columbia was a winged rocket plane, the size of an airliner, capable of flying to space and back before being made ready to fly again. She was the world’s first real spaceship. 
 
On board were men with the Right Stuff. The Shuttle’s Commander, moonwalker John Young, was already a veteran of five spaceflights. Alongside him, Pilot Bob Crippen was making his first, but Crip, taken in by the space agency after the cancellation of a top secret military space station programme in 1969, had worked on the Shuttle’s development for a decade. Never before had a crew been so well prepared for their mission. 
 
Yet less than an hour after Young and Crippen’s spectacular departure from the Cape it was clear that all was not well. Tiles designed to protect Columbia from the blowtorch burn of re-entry were missing from the heatshield. If the damage to their ship was too great the astronauts would be unable to return safely to earth. But neither they nor mission control possessed any way of knowing. 
 
Instead, NASA turned to the National Reconnaissance Office, a spy agency hidden deep inside the Pentagon whose very existence was classified. To help, the NRO would attempt something that had never been done before. Success would require skill, pinpoint timing and luck … 
 
Drawing on brand new interviews with astronauts and engineers, archive material and newly declassified documents, Rowland White, bestselling author of Vulcan 607, has pieced together the dramatic untold story of the mission for the first time. Into the Black is a thrilling race against time; a gripping high stakes cold-war story, and a celebration of a beyond the state-of-the-art machine that, hailed as one of the seven new wonders of the world, rekindled our passion for spaceflight. 
 
*With a foreword by Astronaut Richard Truly* 
 
‘Beautifully researched and written, Into the Black tells the true, complete story of the Space Shuttle better than it’s ever been told before.’ 
Colonel Chris Hadfield, former Astronaut and Space Station Commander 
 
‘Brilliantly revealed, Into the Black is the finely tuned true story of the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Rowland White has magnificently laid bare the unknown dangers and unseen hazards of that first mission … Once read, not forgotten.’ 
Clive Cussler

Into the Black

The electrifying true story of how the first flight of the Space Shuttle nearly ended in disaster

'A thrilling blow-by-blow account' The Times 
'A first-rate popular history of a fascinating and neglected battle... a veritable page-turner' BBC History 
 
In February 1944, a rag-tag collection of clerks, drivers, doctors, muleteers, and other base troops, stiffened by a few dogged Yorkshiremen and a handful of tank crews managed to hold out against some of the finest infantry in the Japanese Army, and then defeat them in what was one of the most astonishing battles of the Second World War. 
 
What became know as The Defence of the Admin Box, fought amongst the paddy fields and jungle of Northern Arakan over a fifteen-day period, turned the battle for Burma. Not only was it the first decisive victory for British troops against the Japanese, more significantly, it demonstrated how the Japanese could be defeated. The lessons learned in this tiny and otherwise insignificant corner of the Far East, set up the campaign in Burma that would follow, as General Slim's Fourteenth Army finally turned defeat into victory. 
 
Burma '44 is a tale of incredible drama. As gripping as the story of Rorke's drift, as momentous as the battle for the Ardennes, the Admin Box was a triumph of human grit and heroism and remains one of the most significant yet undervalued conflicts of World War Two. 
 
The new, sweeping World War II book from James Holland, THE SAVAGE STORM, is available now.

Burma '44

The Battle That Turned Britain's War in the East

J.M. Maloney

'A tale of survival.' Daily Mail 
 
'Survival against the odds ... [an] amazing story.' The Sun 
 
In 1939 Annie Jarman and her six young daughters were evacuated from their south London home and sent to the Sussex countryside to wait out the war. Refusing to be parted, they faced the unknown together, never imagining just how much their lives would change. 
 
 From the trials and tribulations of leaving London, the destructive horror of the Blitz and terrible family tragedy to dances, romances and the triumph of making a new life in the country, The Sisters of Battle Road is the compelling true story of six ordinary girls in extraordinary wartime circumstances. 
 
 Today, the six young girls – Mary, Joan, Sheila, Kathleen, Patricia and Ann – are six remarkable women who have lived to tell their tale of sisterhood and its unbreakable bonds in the shadow of World War Two.

The Sisters of Battle Road

The Extraordinary True Story of Six Sisters Evacuated from Wartime London

Dan Waddell

Adolf Hitler despised cricket, considering it un-German and decadent. And Berlin in 1937 was not a time to be going against the Fuhrer’s wishes. But hot on the heels of the 1936 Olympics, an enterprising cricket fanatic of enormous bravery, Felix Menzel, somehow persuaded his Nazi leaders to invite an English team to play his motley band of part-timers. 
 
That team was the Gentlemen of Worcestershire, an ill-matched group of mavericks, minor nobility, ex-county cricketers, rich businessmen and callow schoolboys – led by former Worcestershire CC skipper Major Maurice Jewell. Ordered ‘not to lose’ by the MCC, Jewell and his men entered the 'Garden of Beasts' to play two unofficial Test matches against Germany. 
 
Against a backdrop of repression, brutality and sporadic gunfire, the Gents battled searing August heat, matting pitches, the skill and cunning of Menzel, and opponents who didn't always adhere to the laws and spirit of the game. The tour culminated in a match at the very stadium which a year before had witnessed one of sport's greatest spectacles and a sinister public display of Nazi might. 
 
Despite the shadow cast by the cataclysmic conflict that was shortly to engulf them, Dan Waddell's vivid and detailed account of the Gentlemen of Worcestershire's 1937 Berlin tour is a story of triumph: of civility over barbarity, of passion over indifference and hope over despair.

Field of Shadows

The English Cricket Tour of Nazi Germany 1937

Wes Davis

In the bleakest years of the Second World War when it appeared that nothing could slow the advance of the German army, Hitler set his sights on the Mediterranean island of Crete, the ideal staging ground for domination of the Middle East. But German command had not counted on the strength of the Cretan resistance or the eccentric band of British intelligence officers who would stand in their way, conducting audacious sabotage operations in the very shadow of the Nazi occupation force. 
 
The Ariadne Objective tells the remarkable story of the secret war on Crete from the perspective of these amateur soldiers who found themselves serving because, as one of them put it, they had made 'the obsolete choice of Greek at school'. John Pendlebury, a swashbuckling archaeologist with a glass eye and a swordstick; Xan Fielding, a writer who would later produce the English translations of books like Bridge on the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes; Sandy Rendel, a future Times reporter, who prided himself on a disguise that left him looking more ragged and fierce than the Cretans he fought alongside; and Patrick Leigh Fermor, the future travel-writing luminary who, as a teenager in the early 1930s, walked across Europe, a continent already beginning to feel the effects of Hitler's rise to power. 
 
Having infiltrated occupied Crete, these British gentleman spies teamed with Cretan partisans to carry out a cunning plan to disrupt Nazi manoeuvres, culminating in a daring, high-risk plot to abduct the island’s German commander. In this thrilling and little known episode of Second World War history, Wes Davis paints a brilliant portrait of some extraordinary characters and tells a story of triumph against all the odds.

The Ariadne Objective

Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis

Richard Guilliatt

Peter Hohnen

In the years 1916-1918, the Wolf, an ordinary freighter fitted-out with a hidden arsenal of weapons, was sent by Germany on one of the most daring clandestine naval missions of modern times. Under the command of Kapitan Karl Nerger, the ship undertook a continuous fifteen-month cruise in which she traversed three of the world's major oceans, destroyed more than thirty Allied vessels and captured over 400 men, women and children. During this time the Wolf maintained radio silence and never pulled into port, surviving on fuel and food plundered from captured ships. Equipped with the era's newest technological marvels the Wolf was an instrument of terror in a new age of mechanised warfare. 
 
In The Wolf, Richard Guilliatt &amp; Peter Hohnen bring this little-known story to life by drawing on dozens of eyewitness accounts, unpublished memoirs, declassified government files, newspaper reports and family archives unearthed during three years of intensive research in several countries. What emerges from these accounts is a richly-detailed picture of the world through which the Wolf moved, with all its social divisions and naked xenophobia, its spirit of bravery and stoicism, its paradoxical combination of old-world social mores and rapid technological change. 
 
This extraordinary adventure story exhibits the tremendous impact that one lone, audacious German warship made on the people of many nations during the final two years of the First World War.

The Wolf

A classic adventure story of how one ship took on the navies of the world in the First World War

Rorke Denver

**THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** 
 
With all the SEALs' recent successes, we have been getting a level of attention we are not used to. It's been flattering but something important has been missing from the discussion. People keep describing what we do, but no one has even scratched the surface of how and why. The unique psychology behind it. 
 
Operating in the world’s most hostile environments, the Navy SEALs are highly skilled warriors, finely tuned and ready for action. Now, for the first time, Lieutenant Commander Rorke Denver offers a compelling and profound insight into the extreme bravery, borderline lunacy, and touching camaraderie of this elite brotherhood. 
 
Packed with tales from the gruelling training process and real-life operations, Rorke Denver recounts his evolution from a young SEAL hopeful pushing his way through Hell Week, into a warrior engaging in dangerous stealth missions across the globe, and finally into a lieutenant commander directing the indoctrination programmes and the “Hero or Zero” missions his graduating SEALs undertake. 
 
From hunting Osama bin Laden to hostage rescues in Somalia and momentum-shifting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the SEALs hit hard and fast, moving in and out of conflict zones without leaving a trace. 
 
Through the course of Denver’s story, you’ll see what it takes to become one of them and why they are the damn few.

Damn Few

Making the Modern SEAL Warrior

The night of May 16th, 1943. Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, each with a huge 9,000lb cylindrical bomb strapped underneath it. Their mission: to destroy three dams deep within the German heartland, which provide the lifeblood to the industries supplying the Third Reich's war machine. 
 
From the outset it was an almost impossible task, a suicide mission: to fly low and at night in formationover many miles of enemy-occupied territory at the very limit of the Lancasters' capacity, and drop a new weapon that had never been tried operationally before from a precise height of just sixty feet from the water at some of the most heavily defended targets in Germany. 
 
More than that, the entire operation had to be put together in less than ten weeks. When visionary aviation engineer Barnes Wallis's concept of the bouncing bomb was green lighted, he hadn't even drawn up his plans for the weapon that was to smash the dams. What followed was an incredible race against time, which, despite numerous setbacks and against huge odds, became one of the most successful and game-changing bombing raids of all time.

Dam Busters

The Race to Smash the Dams, 1943

Tom Abraham

Tom 'Bud' Abraham was one of the very few Englishmen to serve in Vietnam. As an officer in the 1st Cavalry Division during 1967/8, he saw combat in some of the fiercest encounters of the war. His gallantry earned him a chestful of medals, including the Silver Star, one of the highest decorations awarded by the American Army. 
 
During the Tet Offensive, Tom was captured by the Vietcong. The suffering he endured during his interrogation and torture tested him to the limits, and yet his daring escape into the surrounding jungle was the beginning of a new ordeal. His struggle to survive, naked and alone, would drag him down to the level of a primitive beast. 
 
After he returned to England from Vietnam, Tom made a new life. He married, became a father, and started a successful career in business. It seemed that he had forgotten the nightmare of the past. But more than thirty years later, a trivial encounter with the police began a catastrophic chain of events. He lost everything - his family, his home, his self-respect. It became all too obvious that the psychological and emotional wounds he received in Vietnam were still festering. 
 
In trying to rebuild his life, Tom had once more to confront those traumatic memories that he had buried so deep. If he were to have any chance of a future, he would have to relive the past. His terrifying yet inspiring journey is the story of this book.

The Cage

Abandoned as a baby, Andy McNab's start in life was tough. Growing up in South London with foster parents, and surrounded by poverty, he attended seven schools in as many years, disillusioned and in remedial classes. It wasn’t long before his life descended into petty crime. By the age of sixteen, he was in juvenile detention. 
 
Recruited into the Army from there, it soon became apparent that he had the reading age of an eleven year old. The next six months in the Army education system changed his course of his life forever. Today Everything Changes is the inspiring story of when life changed for Andy McNab.

Today Everything Changes

Quick Read

Matt Gallagher

Iraq, late 2007. Lieutenant Matt Gallagher arrives just as US policy shifts from lethal operations to counter-insurgency. He encounters a world where nothing is as it seems. Friends are enemies, reconciliation is war, roads are bombs and silence is deadly. Nothing left to do except 'embrace the suck'... 
 
...and blog about it. Matt Gallagher's response was to write an on-line journal (called Kaboom) which quickly went viral. Read by thousands of soldiers who recognised its unflinchingly honest portrayal of the real war, as well as high-ranking Pentagon officials and interested parties around the world, Kaboom was shut down by the US Army in June 2008. Now you can read the whole story, based on that brilliant, acerbic, banned blog. Kaboom paints a shockingly original and uncompromising portrait of a savage war the world is still struggling to understand.

Kaboom

Operation Market Garden: a plan to capture the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem and outflank the German front. 
 
In all twelve thousand airborne troops were to land, either by parachute or glider, at three drop zones and move towards their objective. As the world now knows the mission was to be 'a bridge too far' for the British forces. 
 
Mike Rossiter has interviewed three of the survivors of those fateful days, each involved in a different flank of the British attack, and in vivid detail reconstructs the events that lead up to this most famous of glorious defeats. It is at once a story of hubris and bad planning, but also of valiant sacrifice and inspirational courage.

We Fought at Arnhem

It was to be one of the most ambitious operations since 617 Squadron bounced their revolutionary bombs into the dams of the Ruhr Valley in 1943 . . . 
 
April 1982. Argentine forces had invaded the Falkland Islands. Britain needed an answer. And fast. 
 
The idea was simple: to destroy the vital landing strip at Port Stanley. The reality was more complicated. The only aircraft that could possibly do the job was three months from being scrapped, and the distance it had to travel was four thousand miles beyond its maximum range. It would take fifteen Victor tankers and seventeen separate in-flight refuellings to get one Avro Vulcan B2 over the target, and give its crew any chance of coming back alive. 
 
Yet less than a month later, a formation of elderly British jets launched from a remote island airbase to carry out the longest-range air attack in history. At its head was a single aircraft, six men, and twenty-one thousand-pound bombs, facing the hornet’s nest of modern weaponry defending the Argentine forces on the Falkland Islands. There would be no second chances . . .

Vulcan 607

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

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