Author(s): Andy McNab

Non-fiction

I took my belt kit off and got down on my belly. All I had with my was my pistol as I kitten-crawled towards the perimeter. I put my hands out, put pressure on my elbows and pushed myself forward with the tips of my toes. Six inches at a time, I moved through the undergrowth. I stopped, lifted my head from the dirt of the jungle floor, looked and listened. I heard my own breath and it sounded a hundred times louder than anything around me. The leaves crackled more than they normally would; everything was magnified ten times in my mind. I inched forward again. It took an hour to cover twenty metres. We were right on top of the target now and movement was the thing that was going to give us away. Andy McNab gripped more than a million and a half readers worldwide with his number one bestseller "Bravo Two Zero", the true story of an SAS patrol behind enemy lines in Iraq. Now he has written a book that is even more explosive and compelling. "Immediate Action" is a no-holds-barred account of an extraordinary life, from the day McNab was found in a carrier bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital, to the day he went to fight in the Gulf War. As a delinquent youth, he kicked against society. As a young soldier he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh. As a member of 22 SAS Regiment, he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years - on five continents. Recounting with grim humour and in riveting, often horrifying, detail his activities in the world's most highly trained and efficient Special Forces unit, McNab sweeps us into a world of surveillance and intelligence-gathering, counter-terrorism and hostage rescue. There are casualties: the best men are so often the first to be killed, because they are in front. By turns chilling, astonishing, violent, funny and moving, this blistering first-hand account of life at the forward edge of battle confirms Andy McNab's standing in the front rank of writers on modern war.