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Stephen Leather

The second hard-hitting action thriller in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series.

There's only one thing more dangerous than a corrupt cop … and that's a corrupt cop with a gun.

When a group of armed police in an elite unit turn maverick and start to rip off drug dealers at gunpoint, undercover cop Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is given his most dangerous mission so far.

Shepherd is ordered to infiltrate the tight-knit team, to gain their confidence and to ultimately betray them.

Facing men with guns is nothing new for the former SAS trooper, but it's the first time he's had to investigate his own. And the job couldn't have come at a worse time for him.

As Shepherd finds himself in the firing line, he has to decide exactly where his loyalties lie.

(P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Paul Thornley

Hodder & Stoughton

The Spider Shepherd Thrillers

Soft Target

Dan 'Spider' Shepherd returns in the third stunning action thriller from bestselling author Stephen Leather.

Even deadlier than terrorists … are the men trying to stop them.

People-smuggling, counterfeit currency and attempted murder. It's all in a day's work for undercover cop Dan 'Spider' Shepherd. But what starts as a run-of-the mill investigation quickly turns into a matter of life and death when he uncovers a terrorist cell on a mission of death and destruction. The target: hundreds of passengers on a cross-channel train deep below the English Channel.

With the clock ticking and the explosives primed, Shepherd and his colleagues have to decide just how far they are prepared to go to save innocent lives. And they realise that to avoid catastrophe, they have to be even more merciless than the terrorists.

(P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Cold Kill

The fourth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series, from the master of the gritty action thriller Stephen Leather.

Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. It goes with the turf when you're an undercover cop. 

Now working for the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Shepherd is pitting his wits against the toughest criminals in the country. But when the man who once saved his life is kidnapped in the badlands of Iraq, thrown into a basement and threatened with execution, Shepherd has to decide whether his loyalties lie with his country, his career, or his friend. 

Shepherd and his former SAS colleagues realise that the hostage has been abandoned by the Government and that officially nothing is being done to rescue him. And with the execution deadline only days away, Shepherd knows that the only way to stop his friend being murdered is to put himself in the firing line in the most dangerous city in the world - Baghdad. 

(P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Hot Blood

The fifth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series, from the internationally bestselling author. 

Former SAS trooper turned undercover cop Dan Spider Shepherd knows there are no easy solutions in the war against terrorism. But when a killer starts to target pardoned IRA terrorists, Shepherd has to put his life on the line to protect his former enemies. 

While he is undercover in Belfast, a grief-stricken Saudi whose two sons died under torture in the name of the War on Terror is planning to avenge their deaths by striking out at two people close to Shepherd. As the Muslim assassin closes in on his prey, Shepherd realises that the only way to save lives is to become a killer himself.

(P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Dead Men

The sixth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. 

Mickey and Mark Moore are Ordinary Decent Criminals - hard men who live by their own code and leaders of a gang that has made millions at the point of a gun. 

But when Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is sent to infiltrate the tightly-knit team of bank robbers, he discovers that he has more in common with them then he first thought. And that perhaps being a career criminal isn't the worst thing in the world. 

As Shepherd and his Serious Organised Crime Agency colleagues plot the downfall of the Moore brothers, a more sinister threat stalks the streets of London. A group of home-grown Islamic fundamentalist fanatics embark on a campaign of terror the like of which Britain has never seen. Car bombs and beheadings are only the prelude of what they have planned. 

And Shepherd is the only man who can stop them.

(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Live Fire

The seventh book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. 

Villains across London are being beaten, crippled and killed by vigilante cops. Crime rates are falling, but the powers that be want Dan 'Spider' Shepherd to bring the wave of rough justice to an end. 

Shepherd has always known that there are grey areas in the fight against crime. And that sometimes justice gets lost in the process.

He has never been comfortable investigating cops, but working for the Serious Organised Crime Agency means that he has no choice. He has to go undercover with an elite group of officers who are at the sharp end of policing, risking their lives daily on the toughest streets in the Capital.

But Shepherd has hard decisions of his own to make when his family is in the firing line.

(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Rough Justice

The eighth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. 

Kidnapping is one of the cruellest crimes - lives are put at risk for cold, hard cash. But when Somali pirates seize the crew of a yacht off the coast of Africa, they bite off more than they can chew.

One of the hostages has friends in high places and Spider Shepherd is put on the case. He goes deep undercover in an audacious plan to bring an end to the pirate gang's reign of terror.

But as Shepherd closes in on his quarry he realises that there's much more at stake than the lives of the hostages and that the pirates are involved in a terrorist plot that will strike at the heart of London.

(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Fair Game

The twelfth heart-pounding thriller in Stephen Leather's bestselling Spider Shepherd series.

In what could be his highest-profile mission ever, Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is called in to prevent the assassination of a head of state on British soil.

As an MI5 agent, Spider is used to going undercover, but when he's asked to assume the identity of the contract killer hired to take out President Vladimir Putin, he knows he'll become a wanted man.

And things are about to get more complicated: Spider is told that his MI5 controller and close friend Charlotte Button has been running an off-the-books assassination operation, taking vengeance on the men who killed her husband. Spider owes his life to Button - but this discovery will stretch his loyalty to the limit…

(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Black Ops

The fight against terrorism never ends, and Dan "Spider" Shepherd is in the front line of Britain's defence against the extremists.

When an ISIS bombmaker arrives at Heathrow Airport asking for asylum in exchange for revealing details of his paymasters, Shepherd is given the case. The bombmaker specialises in drone strikes, and homegrown jihadists that he has trained are already back in the UK, planning their attacks. But before he'll agree to talk, the terrorist insists that his wife and son are rescued from a refugee camp in Turkey. Shepherd is tasked with bringing the family back to London, but he soon discovers that dark forces are out to stop him. And if he fails, hundreds will die.

(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Slow Burn

The new edge-of-your-seat novel in the thrilling Spider Shepherd series

Who can you trust if you can't trust the people tasked with protecting the nation?

Murderous jihadists have been crossing the English Channel, passing themselves off as asylum seekers. MI5 have been keeping them under surveillance, but what starts as a simple terrorist takedown goes badly wrong and dozens of innocent civilians are killed in the heart of London.

And the screw is tightened when a bomb takes out senior members of the Secret Intelligence Service.

Someone within the security services has been working to their own agenda, and only Dan 'Spider' Shepherd can identify the bad apple. His search for the rogue agent takes him to Turkey and then to Dubai, where his masters order him to carry out a breathtaking act of revenge.

(P)2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited