The skills he learned in the Australian Special Air Service have carried over to his new life as an Aboriginal spiritual leader and contract killer for drug lord Jay Burrell. Alfie knows how to stalk and kill a victim, then disappear without a trace. But it's the ritualistic murders and the devouring of his victims during the Aboriginal ceremony that send a clear message to Burrell's enemies.Charley Payne was losing it. He had spent his life as a door kicker for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the world's hot spots. When his friend, Police Detective Sergeant Bobby Lee Martaine realized that Charley was becoming a danger to himself and his missions, Bobby Lee offered him a job. Trading in his guns for a camera, Charley finds his new life as a forensic photographer in the Twin Cities uneventful and peaceful—just what he needed, until Charley is called in to photograph a gruesome murder scene.There are no fingerprints and only one clue, a bizarre Aboriginal painting. Most in the police department begin to suspect a serial killer is on the loose. Bobby Lee is closing in on Alfie, but Alfie learned in the SAS that a mission is not complete if you've left a trail behind. When Bobby Lee and his family turn up dead, Charley returns to the way of the gun. But he will be fighting a war on the spiritual leader's turf in the Australian outback. A fight to the death that took place in the Aboriginal dream world five centuries before.

    She tells Zeke that Jonas Dawson, a lawyer with mob connections, is going to kill her. She knows this because Dawson strangled her aunt, Pamela Keller. That’s ominous enough, but things get complicated when Paulette tells Zeke she was her aunt in a previous life. Zeke finds that hard to believe, but he sees that Paulette truly feels vulnerable. So he takes a look into things. When he does, a couple of bruisers try to make him back off. Big mistake. Zeke’s previous job was playing middle linebacker for the Chicago Bears. His best friends, George A. Black and Regina Green, are also no strangers to laying a hurt on people. Throw in shady big-city politics, any number of cops, some honest, some not, and a pair of hit men nicknamed Paganini and Chopin and Zeke’s first case is summed up by a time-honored expression. “Welcome to the game, rookie.”

    Within six weeks, all but one had been found guilty of mutiny, their sentences ranging from five years’ penal servitude to death. Fifty years on, Saul David became the first military historian to gain access to the court martial papers – normally restricted for 75 years. In addition to crucial defence documents and the testimony of eye-witnesses, these papers have enabled Saul David to expose: •How poorly-equipped Eighth Army veterans, some still recovering from wounds and illness, were needlessly sent as reinforcements to Salerno when Fifth Army men were available.•How transit camp authorities deliberately deceived the reinforcements as to their destination.•How the defence team at the trial was forced, by lack of time, lack of witnesses and the hostility of the court, to offer a case based on no evidence and doomed to fail.•How, after the humane intervention of the adjutant-general and the suspension of the sentences, insensitive staff officers and victimization in their new units caused many mutineers to desert.•How, as a result of their convictions, the former war heroes were stripped of their campaign and gallantry medals and branded as cowards. Concluding that the men were victims of a terrible injustice, Mutiny at Salerno provides a compelling case for a free pardon. It is a book that no one interested in World War Two will want to miss. 'Mutiny' has been critically acclaimed: 'An important book' (Military Illustrated) 'Mr David has added considerably to the knowledge of the Salerno mutiny. This book should be read by anyone with an interest in the episode.' (Prof. Peter Rowe,RUSI Journal)'A thoroughly enjoyable and interesting book and the author makes his case well' (Journal of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst) 'A detailed account... David is right to stress that the mutiny stemmed from the men's reluctance to fight amongst strangers rather than their reluctance to fight at all, and that many of the mutineers preserved a dignified and soldierly attitude throughout the proceedings.' (Richard Holmes, TLS)Saul David is Professor of War Studies at the University of Buckingham and the author of several critically acclaimed history books, including The Indian Mutiny: 1857 (short-listed for the Westminster Medal for Military Literature), Prince of Pleasure: The Prince of Wales and the Making of the Regency, Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 (a Waterstones Military History Book of the Year) and, most recently, Victoria's Wars: The Rise of Empire.He has also written two best-selling historical novels set in the wars of the late 19th Century, Zulu Hart and Hart of Empire. An experienced broadcaster, he has presented and appeared in history programmes for all the major TV channels and is a regular contributor to Radio 4.Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher.

    I began the process without much enthusiasm and quickly got side lined by my new civilian life. Little did I realize that I wouldn’t re-visit my disability claims again until almost forty years later, when I watched President Barack Obama give a speech on the horrors of the Vietnam War. I’m still not quite sure what happened that day, but after listening to the president, I committed myself to investigate the causal link between my tactical pesticide exposures and the myriad health problems plaguing my life and the lives of many other Vietnam veterans. My post-service medical problems began mildly enough but soon balloned and were followed by more serious health issues. Every time I would ask one of my doctors what was causing my illness, I would usually get the answer, “I don’t know, but---.” When I began my research in 2012, I would learn that Agent Orange, along with several other military pesticides, were all very capable of impacting every biological system in my body and could actually be linked to many wide-ranging ailments for which many of my doctors could only say they weren’t sure of the cause. Despite the uniqueness of Vietnam veterans and the incredibly diverse range of hazardous chemicals to which we were exposed, the DVA insists on assessing our illnesses by using civilian epidemiological studies, resulting in appallingly inadequate standards for evaluating our toxic exposures during the war. During my years of research, I have quite literally reviewed thousands of studies and documents. The vast majority of those records came to the same inescapable conclusions as I eventually did at the end of my investigation. Low-level exposures to just the various known chemicals discussed in my book will attack living organisms on an undetected hormonal, genetic, and cellular/molecular level, producing covert systemic damage and alterations to immune, cardiovascular, endocrine, respiratory, and neurological systems of any human unlucky enough to be put in their path. Exactly how that damage and those alterations manifest depends on the several exposure factors which I discus in the book. Regrettably, I couldn’t go back over the last half a century to get a do-over or to have the war conducted differently. I couldn’t force our legislative or military leaders to make better decisions. I couldn’t rewrite the unpleasant history of the Vietnam War, with all the numerous negative impacts that war had on me and every other soldier, marine, or sailor who served the United States in South Vietnam and in the blue waters of the surrounding ocean. The very best I could do, almost a half century after the war, was to write an account of our betrayal and describe our exposures to the toxic pesticides and abhorrent conditions of the Vietnam War. All in the sincere effort to correct the present so that what occurred in South Vietnam will never happen again to new generations of military personnel, their families and their children and quite possibility their grandchildren’s children. The mountain of evidence presented in my book points to one common sense conclusion: Exposure to the tactical pesticides used in the Vietnam War were extremely injurious to the health of military personnel, as well as, the health of anyone else exposed to them. Despite all the facts, the government still places the burden of proof on veterans instead of taking responsibility for the mess they made during the Vietnam War or in the words of Dr. Jeanne Stellman, the Vietnam War is, "the largest unstudied environmental disaster in the world."

    During the lend-lease agreement with the USA, the RAF and Fleet Air Arm operated several American designs, each of which was tested to evaluate its potential.This book looks at the key area of fighter aircraft and includes the test results and pilot's own first-hand accounts of flying seventeen different models, designed in the UK, America and Germany. The reader will learn of the possibilities of air superiority offered by these types and also their weaknesses. Types included are The Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, Boulton Paul Defiant, Hawker Tempest and Typhoon, Bell Airacobra, Messerschmitt Bf 109, Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Brewster Buffalo, Curtiss Tomahawk, North American Mustang, Grumman Martlet, Republic Thunderbolt, and Vought Corsair. All aircraft that saw a great deal of action throughout the War and which are now part of legend.

     Only since the Falklands campaign have the initials SBS become known to the public. Yet this clandestine formation of Britain’s armed forces has been in existence since the Second World War. Barrie Pitt, who himself served with the SBS, describes how the it came into being in 1941. How they fought with distinction in the Aegean, where one of their exploits inspired The Guns of Navarone. How they earned rapport in the Adriatic, in Greece and in Italy. How the SBS was reorganised in 1946 as part of the Royal Marines and has since played a role in Korea, Borneo and the Falklands. Equally interesting is the author’s report of the training and specialized skills required by the boat units, and the essential tasks facing them — infiltration from the sea, reconnaissance, sabotage, survival, resistance to interrogation, escape from captivity — and the expertise and determination to complete them. As Barrie Pitt's superb account of the formative years of this elite force shows, these qualities have been present from the very beginning. Barrie Pitt (1918-2006) was well known as a military historian and editor of Purnell’s History of the Second World War and History of the First World War. His publications include 'Coronel and Falkland', 'Churchill and the Generals' and 'The Crucible of War', a trilogy covering the North African campaign of the Second World War. He was born in Galway and later lived near Ilminster in Somerset.

    In this paperback edition, updated to show how and why Saddam Hussein repositioned himself as a Jihadi against America, M.J. Akbar explains the struggle between Islam and Christianity. Placing recent events in a historical context, he tackles the tricky question of what now for Jihad following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.With British and American troops in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and once again in Iraq, the potential for Jihadi recruitment is ever increasing. Explaining how Jihad thrives on complex and shifting notions of persecution, victory and sacrifice, and illustrating how Muslims themselves have historically tried both to direct and control the phenomenon of Jihad, Akbar shows how Jihad pervades the mind and soul of Islam, revealing its strength and significance.To know the future, one needs to understand the past. M.J. Akbar's The Shade of Swords holds the key.

    Ten highly motivated and trained terrorists, armed with guns, grenades and improvised explosive devices, slip past coastal security cordons on India's western seacoast in a fishing trawler. They board a rubber dinghy and disembark at Machhimar Nagar, Colaba, Mumbai. Over the next three agonizing days, India's 'Maximum City' is brought to its knees as the fidayeen wreak unprecedented havoc at pre-selected landmarks, holding India's commercial capital hostage. The 26/11 attacks, as they are now known, is widely regarded as the world's first hybrid terrorist attack. The attackers achieved through this long-drawn siege what Al Qaeda did through the high-visibility mass-casualty attack of 11 September 2001. The response to this attack was the first instance of all three wings of the Indian armed forces coming together to fight terror. The attacks tested the mettle of India's elite counter-terrorist force, the National Security Guard, whose strike element was entirely made up of army personnel; the navy dispatched its marine commandos in the initial hours of the attack; the air force flew the NSG into the city and air-dropped them over Nariman House. Black Tornado, as the operation was called by the NSG, is the story of these men called into action in the desperate hours following the most sensational terrorist attack the country has ever seen. Sandeep Unnithan puts together a blow-by-blow account of the terrorist strike and how the siege of Mumbai was thwarted by India's security forces.

    

    Cabinet member. But the further the American and English pair investigate, the more holes they find in the official version of events.With help from a maverick CIA officer and a brilliant intelligence analyst, Novak and Mitchell uncover evidence of an extraordinary conspiracy involving the White House, the British government, and a shadowy deep-state organization.As conspirators close in from all sides, Novak and Mitchell must risk everything to track down the one source who can break their story and expose the truth. On the run for their lives, they will find out just how far those in power are willing to go to preserve their secrets...An Amazon UK No.1 Political Thriller and multi-bestseller, Official Secrets is “explosive” (bestselling author Mason Cross), packed with globetrotting action and rollercoaster twists. If you like David Baldacci, J.B. Turner, Brad Thor, and Barry Eisler, this addictive series will leave you telling yourself ‘just one more page’. What readers say about Andrew Raymond:A BOOK OF THE YEAR. ‘A cracking good thriller.’ – Chris Patten, former Member of Parliament.

    As a result she won The Young Journalist of the Year Award. This is a descriptive analysis of what she sees as the tragedy of Pakistan as it moves towards the 21st century - a woeful catalogue of vested interests, corruption, an overpowering military and an unconfident and enfeebled new democracy. She looks at treatment of women, urban life, patronage and government, troubled relationship with India, Afghanistan and power of tribes and drug lords, the great game of espionage on the new frontier, Benazir Bhutto and her failure to impose change and the imminent breakdown of democracy.

    A movement born in Iran during the Islamic Revolution in 1979, radical Islam has at its heart the goal of complete world domination. As this movement has grown, Iran has entered into alliances with Syria and Russia, leading to a deadly game of geopolitical threats and violence. Not only will you better understand jihadist terror, but you will also learn about Sharia law—a legal code that removes all personal liberty and is starkly incompatible with the US Constitution. All Muslims are required to follow Sharia—as are all who live in lands controlled by Islam. It is the goal of radical Islam to see Sharia instituted across the globe. If we are to combat radical Islam’s agenda of domination, we must arm ourselves with knowledge. With carefully researched history, legal-case studies, and in-depth interviews, Unholy Alliance lays out the ideology and strategy of radical Islam, as well as the path we must take to defeat it.

    During this time, he found himself in the midst of what can only be described as a quickly escalating two-front technology cold war between democracy and autocracy. On the front-end, we’re fighting to control the software—applications, news information, social media platforms, and more—of what we see on the screens of our computers, tablets, and phones, a clash which started out primarily with Russia but now increasingly includes China and Iran. Even more ominously, we’re also engaged in a hidden back-end battle—largely with China—to control the internet’s hardware, which includes devices like cellular phones, satellites, fiber-optic cables, and 5G networks. This tech-fueled war will shape the world’s balance of power for the coming century as autocracies exploit 21st-century methods to redivide the world into 20th-century-style spheres of influence. Without a firm partnership with the government, Silicon Valley is unable to protect democracy from the autocrats looking to sabotage it from Beijing to Moscow and Tehran. Helberg offers “unnervingly convincing evidence that time is running out in the ‘gray war’ with the enemies of freedom” (Kirkus Reviews) which could affect every meaningful aspect of our lives, including our economy, our infrastructure, our national security, and ultimately, our national sovereignty.

    Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent—she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job. When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping as the Afghan and Pakistani governments floun­der. Barker watches Afghan police recruits make a travesty of practice drills and observes the disorienting turnover of diplomatic staff. She is pursued romantically by the former prime minister of Pakistan and sees adrenaline-fueled col­leagues disappear into the clutches of the Taliban. And as her love for these hapless countries grows, her hopes for their stability and security fade. Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone.

    Yet the critical question facing America remains unanswered: What should be the nation's global strategy for maintaining its exceptional position in the world? Zbigniew Brzezinski tackles this question head-on in this incisive and pathbreaking book.The Grand Chessboard presents Brzezinski's bold and provocative geostrategic vision for American preeminence in the twenty-first century. Central to his analysis is the exercise of power on the Eurasian landmass, which is home to the greatest part of the globe's population, natural resources, and economic activity. Stretching from Portugal to the Bering Strait, from Lapland to Malaysia, Eurasia is the ”grand chessboard” on which America's supremacy will be ratified and challenged in the years to come. The task facing the United States, he argues, is to manage the conflicts and relationships in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East so that no rival superpower arises to threaten our interests or our well-being.The heart of The Grand Chessboard is Brzezinski's analysis of the four critical regions of Eurasia and of the stakes for America in each arena—Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and East Asia. The crucial fault lines may seem familiar, but the implosion of the Soviet Union has created new rivalries and new relationships, and Brzezinski maps out the strategic ramifications of the new geopolitical realities. He explains, for example: Why France and Germany will play pivotal geostrategic roles, whereas Britain and Japan will not. Why NATO expansion offers Russia the chance to undo the mistakes of the past, and why Russia cannot afford to toss this opportunity aside. Why the fate of Ukraine and Azerbaijan are so important to America. Why viewing China as a menace is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why America is not only the first truly global superpower but also the last—and what the implications are for America's legacy. Brzezinski's surprising and original conclusions often turn conventional wisdom on its head as he lays the groundwork for a new and compelling vision of America's vital interests. Once, again, Zbigniew Brzezinski provides our nation with a philosophical and practical guide for maintaining and managing our hard-won global power.