Böcker av David Monnery

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS storm a fortress prison held by Muslim terrorists to rescue a group of British tourists?In 1994, in the newly independent state of Uzbekistan, a party of mostly British tourists is on a day excursion from the fabled city of Samarkand when Muslim fundamentalists hijack their bus. Unknown to the hijackers, this particular group contains recently retired ex-SAS sergeant Jamie Docherty, and the rebellious daughter of the British Foreign Minister, already a tabloid favourite back home. Uncertain how to respond to the terrorists' demands, the Uzbekistan government accepts a British offer of assistance: two members of the SAS crack Counter Revolutionary Warfare wing are dispatched to Samarkand, with instructions to liaise with the local ex-KGB unit. As the negotiations drag on, in the mountain fortress prison Docherty must call on all his formidable expertise and ingenuity to keep his fellow hostages alive, and to prepare them for a prospective rescue mission. The only force likely to have any chance of successfully penetrating the fortress and liberating the prisoners will be a group led by men of the legendary Special Air Service - the SAS!

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS lead a civilian population out of war-ravaged Bosnia to safety?Bosnia, 1993. A small army of Serbs, Muslims and Croats, formed to defend the isolated mountain town of Zavik and under the command of Reeve, a renegade Briton, has begun mounting raids further afield in search of food, fuel and medical supplies. All sides in the civil war are enraged by its exploits; even UN mediators recognize the need for its suppression. But there are only two people Reeve will listen to: his ex-wife, and an ex-comrade in the SAS. The latter is willing to lead a team into Zavik; the former has first to be found - she is either trapped in Sarajevo or imprisoned in a Serbian concentration camp. Rescuing her is only the beginning. The SAS team will then have to traverse the mountainous war zone and force their way into the besieged town. This will be difficult enough. Fighting their way out of the war-ravaged territory with a convoy of the sick, the old and the very young will be next to impossible.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can just three members of the SAS quell a rebel uprising?July 1981: while Gambian President Jawara attends a royal wedding in London, Marxist rebels seize power. Fearing armed intervention from neighbouring Senegal, they take hostages - including one of the president's wives and several of his children - and empty the prisons in a desperate search for allies in the coming struggle. As opposing factions of the police force wrestle for control, prisoners settle old scores, slaughtering almost two thousand Gambians. In tourist beach hotels hundreds of Europeans fear the worst. At Jawara's request, three men of SAS 22 Regiment are sent into this cauldron, supposedly to advise the President and his Senegalese allies. But within days, they have become the spearhead of the counter-revolution, embroiled in both the pursuit of heavily armed criminals and the dangerously delicate business of rescuing hostages.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS survive the Second World War, knowing that Hitler has torn up the rules of war?Early 1944, and with the tide of the war flowing steadily against the Germans, the SAS - born in North Africa as a strategic raiding force behind enemy lines - is performing a similar role in the Italian mountains and French forests. Here, after making common cause with local partisans, they are cutting rail and road links serving the frontline German armies. Hitler knows as much, and is determined that the SAS will pay a terrible price for their efforts. His infamous Commando Order decrees that any raiders captured behind enemy lines, whether in or out of uniform, will be summarily executed. Denied the safety net usually provided by the rules of war, the SAS embark on each new mission knowing that it will end either in success, or death.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS locate their target and make it out of the jungle alive?In the Central American republic of Guatemala, government-sponsored torture and mass murder has reduced the Mayan Indian population to a despairing acquiescence. After five hundred years of struggle it seems as if the conqueror's peace can at last be proclaimed in the capital. Then a guerrilla leader who the authorities have long believed dead springs mysteriously back to life. No loyal Guatemalan can identify him, and the government is compelled to seek help elsewhere, from one of the two SAS soldiers who helped mediate a hostage crisis with the guerrilla almost fifteen years earlier. To the government in Whitehall it appears a straightforward enough exercise, but for the soldier and his comrades the mission soon turns into a nightmare of impossible choices. The land of Guatemala, magical and cruel by turns, will prove much easier to enter than to escape...

An English doctor - a veteran of Britain's special forces - disappears in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and then a 'tourist' who turns out to be a Soviet submarine expert is shot dead in Florida. The SBS are sent into action.