The first book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. Working for an elite undercover squad he has lied, cheated and conned in order to bring Britain's most wanted criminals to justice. But when a powerful drugs baron starts to kill off witnesses to his crimes, Shepherd is given his most dangerous assignment yet. He has to go undercover in a top security prison, a world where one wrong move will mean certain death. As Shepherd gambles everything to move in on his quarry, he soon realises that the man he is hunting is even more dangerous than the police realise. And that he is capable of striking outside the prison walls and hitting Shepherd where it hurts most.

The second book 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.

"While investigating a crew of people-traffickers…Dan Shepherd discovers a cross-Channel currency-smuggling operation. Posing as a low-level criminal, Shepherd infiltrates the gang, befriending its London soldiers and establishing contact with the Albanian gangster who masterminds the business from his swank Paris flat. As Shepherd soon discovers, currency-smuggling isn't the only business these guys dabble in. With the help of a government contact, they've been churning out fake British passports, a scam that eventually finds Shepherd surrounded by Semtex and racing to foil a terrorist plot…The story builds to a boil as Shepherd, piecing together the terrorists' plans as he goes, lands aboard a Paris-bound Eurostar train with four suicide bombers as his fellow passengers. It's a grand finale that'll have readers on edge. Nicely, and seemingly effortlessly, done." —Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

Dan Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. It goes with the territory when you're an undercover cop. Now working for Britain's top anti-organized 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 realize that the hostage has been abandoned by the British government and that, officially, nothing is being done to rescue him. And with the execution only days away, Shepherd knows that the only way to save his friend's life is to put himself on the firing line in the most dangerous city in the world—Baghdad.

Dead Men is the fifth book in the best-selling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. 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."

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 than he first thought—and that perhaps being a career criminal isn't the worst thing in the world. As Shepherd and his Serious Organized 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.

Dan "Spider" Shepherd is sent undercover to investigate a group of policemen in the Territorial Support Group. Fed up with all the paperwork and the fact that the system is geared to support the criminals rather than the victims, they have started to act as vigilantes, planting forensic evidence to frame known criminals, and moving on to more drastic methods. Spider is far from happy about deceiving fellow policemen, and things are complicated on other fronts for him too: his friend Jimmy Sharpe is tied up in an undercover investigation that is causing problems, and he's discovered an extremely disturbing film on his son's cell phone.

Dan "Spider" Shepherd is working for MI5, investigating Somali pirates with links to terrorism in Britain. Meanwhile, the crew of a yacht (including the prime minister's god-daughter) has been kidnapped by the pirates and is being held hostage in Somalia. A covert operation run by MI5 hopes to kill two birds with one stone. Shepherd will go undercover on a container ship they know will be targeted by the pirates, and hopefully will discover not only where the yacht's hostages are being held but also the ringleaders behind the terrorist plans. At the same time though, Shepherd is being hunted down by the Real IRA. And now that he's on the container ship his family are alone and vulnerable.

The ninth all-action thriller in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. The most wanted man in the world is dead. Now those loyal to him seek revenge. When Navy Seals track down and kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, it's obvious there was a traitor on the inside. After the false friends are revealed to be two British students, Malik and Chaudhry - former Islamic fundamentalists recruited by MI5 - they become targets themselves. Dan 'Spider' Shepherd must teach the pair how to survive undercover with al-Qaeda closing in. But Spider is not used to playing the handler. And with the line between mentor and friend beginning to blur, and a terrorist plot putting thousands of lives at stake, can he protect everyone before it's too late?

The Russian oligarchs are the world’s new elite. They treat the world as their plaything, traveling without borders and living lives of unimaginable luxury without fear or restraint. But when an assassin starts killing off some of the world’s richest men, an oligarch with friends in high places seeks the protection of MI5. And Spider Shepherd is placed in the firing line. But while Shepherd has to save the life of a man he neither likes nor respects, he has to deal with a face from his past. The Taliban sniper who put a bullet in his shoulder turns up alive and well and living in London. And Shepherd is in no mood to forgive or forget.

Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line - for his friends and for his job with MI5. So when one of his former apprentices is kidnapped in the badlands of Pakistan, Shepherd doesn't hesitate to join a rescue mission. But when the plan goes horribly wrong, Shepherd ends up in the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists. His SAS training is of little help as his captors beat and torture him. Shepherd's MI5 controller Charlotte Button is determined to get her man out of harm's way, but to do that she's going to have to break all the rules. Her only hope is to bring in America's finest - the elite SEALs who carried out Operation Neptune Spear - in a do-or-die operation to rescue the captives.

WHO CAN YOU TRUST IF YOU CAN'T TRUST YOURSELF? Spider Shepherd's MI5 Controller, Charlie Button, has gone rogue, using government resources to get revenge on the men who killed her husband. Spider is told to betray her. Worse, he's asked to cooperate with his nemesis at MI6, Jeremy Willoughby Brown, in taking Charlie down. And he will have to cross the assassin, Lex Harper, currently on the trail of two Irish terrorists, who may be able to lead him to his ex-boss. Meanwhile, Spider's sixteen-year-old son is caught with drugs, expelled from school and threatened with prosecution. But the drug police offer Spider a deal: go undercover, unmask a local dealer and his son will go free. Spider has no option but to cooperate. But is he any better than Charlie, using work resources to resolve personal issues? There's little time to debate because another high profile mission is about to engulf him. President Vladimir Putin is about to visit the UK and a father who lost his son on the downed Malaysian plane over the Ukraine holds Putin directly responsible for his death and wants revenge. Along with everything else, it's down to Spider to stop the assassination of a head of state on British soil.

When you're caught between two evils, only the most decisive will survive . . . A violent South London gang will be destroyed if Dan 'Spider' Shepherd can gather enough evidence against them while posing as a ruthless hitman. What he doesn't know is that his work as an undercover agent for MI5 is about to intersect with the biggest terrorist operation ever carried out on British soil. Only weeks before Shepherd witnessed a highly skilled IS sniper escape from a targeted missile strike in Syria. But never in his wildest dreams did he expect to next come across the shooter in a grimy East London flat. Spider's going to have to proceed with extreme caution if he is to prevent the death of hundreds of people, but at the same time, when the crucial moment comes he knows he will have to act decisively. The clock is ticking and only he stands between us and Armageddon . . . 'Let Spider draw you into his web, you won't regret it' - Sun What readers are saying about DARK FORCES 'Palpable excitement' - 5 STARS 'I would recommend the Spider series to anyone who can read. They are THAT good!' - 5 STARS 'Possibly Stephen Leather's best yet' - 5 STARS ' Brilliantly written and highly recommended' - 5 STARS 'Just brilliant' - 5 STARS

Working undercover is all about trust - getting the target to trust you and then betraying them in order to bring them to justice. But what do you do when you believe an undercover cop has crossed the line and aligned herself with the international drugs smuggler she was supposed to be targeting? When a deep-undercover cop stops passing on intelligence about her target, MI5 sends in Dan 'Spider' Shepherd to check that she is on the straight and narrow. Now two lives are on the line - and Shepherd discovers that the real danger is closer to home than he realised. As Spider finds his loyalties being tested to the limit, an SAS killer is on a revenge mission in London and only Spider can stop him.

He is one of the world's most ruthless terrorists, codenamed Saladin. He plans and executes devastating attacks and then, ghost-like, he disappears. Ten years ago he blew a plane out of the sky above New York - and now he's struck again, killing dozens in a London strike. But one of the latest victims is related to the acting head of MI5, who knows exactly who she wants on the case: Spider Shepherd. Dean Martin, a psychologically damaged former Navy SEAL, is the only person in the world who can identify Saladin. But Martin was killed ten years ago - wasn't he? Shepherd must find Martin and take him back to the killing fields on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Revenge on the world's most wanted terrorist is long overdue, and Shepherd is determined to be the one to deliver it . . .

Dan 'Spider' Shepherd's career path - soldier, policeman, MI5 officer - has always put a strain on his family. So he is far from happy to learn that MI5 is using teenagers as informants. Parents are being kept in the dark and Shepherd fears that the children are being exploited. As an undercover specialist, Shepherd is tasked with protecting a 15-year-old schoolboy who is being used to gather evidence against violent drug dealers and a right-wing terrorist group. But when the boy's life is threatened, Shepherd has no choice but to step in and take the heat. And while Shepherd's problems mount up at work, he has even greater problems closer to home. His son Liam has fallen foul of the Serbian Mafia and if Shepherd doesn't intervene, Liam will die.

Should we bring them back? There are thousands of jihadi brides in refugee camps in the Middle East. Some of them were once British before they were stripped of their citizenship. Were they brainwashed or simply naive when they set out for Syria as teenagers? And, if they were allowed to return, would they pose a threat to our country? Spider Shepherd is about to be sent on an extraordinary mission to the Syrian border by his MI5 boss. There he will have to decide which of the women he meets is still a threat, and if not, which of them has information useful to the Secret Service and can be allowed back. His are life or death decisions. But there is one bride he must take back to the UK whatever her circumstances. She is the wife of a notorious ISIS bombmaker, Salam Jaraf. Jaraf is an asylum seeker who has information on terrorist cells in Britain. But the bombmaker will only tell MI5 what he knows if his wife and son are brought to him. But it soon becomes obvious that hostile forces are following Spider and Mrs Jaraf across Turkey. Bringing this woman back from the warzone will become one of the most dangerous missions Spider has ever undertaken.

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.

The target - the Prime Minister. The assassins - hard-bitten jihadists with nothing to lose. The only man who can stop them? Dan "Spider" Shepherd. But Shepherd's reputation is also on the line - he helped get one of the jihadists into the UK during the final days of the War in Afghanistan. Now he has to track down the man whose life he once saved. But the assassins aren't lone wolf killers - someone much more devious is pulling their strings. And the clock is ticking . . .

Terrorists have shot down a British helicopter in West Africa and taken the crew hostage. Their lives are on the line and the British government is refusing to negotiate. The pilot is Liam Shepherd, and only his father - Dan 'Spider" Shepherd of MI5 - can help. Shepherd and an SAS team fly out to the badlands of Mali to rescue the kidnapped Brits. But the mission takes Shepherd away from an investigation in a high security prison that is about to explode into violence. Hundreds of lives are at risk, and Shepherd is running out of time...

MI5 analyst David White has always tried to be a good father, so when his daughters want to go to a music festival in Israel, he agrees to take them. But his world falls apart when his daughters are killed in the Hamas massacre that left 1,200 innocent civilians dead. White is taken hostage down in the tunnels under Gaza, and Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd and a crack SAS team are sent in to rescue him. Safely back in London, White is a changed man. He wants revenge for what happened to his family and sets out to kill the men who planned and financed the Hamas attacks. And as White embarks on a vengeance-driven killing spree, Shepherd is the only man who can stop him. Praise for Stephen He has the uncanny knack of producing plots that are all too real—Daily Mail The sheer impetus of his storytelling is damned hard to resist. — Daily Express A master of the thriller genre. —Irish Times

An action-packed short story featuring Dan “Spider” Shepherd during his days as an SAS trooper in Afghanistan. It’s November 2001 and Shepherd is sent on a dangerous mission to a Taliban stronghold on the trail of the most wanted man in the world – Osama Bin Laden. Friendly Fire is just under 14,000 words, about thirty pages, perfect if you have half an hour to spare. Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. He was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. Two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were made into movies. You can find out more from his website, www.stephenleather.com.

An action-packed short story featuring Dan “Spider” Shepherd during his days as an SAS trooper in Afghanistan. It’s 2002 and Shepherd puts his life on the line to help a 12-year-old boy get revenge on a murderous Taliban enforcer.

An action-packed short story featuring Dan “Spider” Shepherd on a mission to Nepal where he meets an SAS living legend. The short story also appears in the collection Spider SAS Volume 2.

An action-packed short story featuring Dan “Spider” Shepherd during his days in the SAS. In Planning Pack he is in the Arabian desert taking on a group of dangerous terrorists. The short story also appears in the collection Spider Shepherd: SAS Volume 2.