Britain's Special Air Service - or SAS - was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat whose aimlessness in early life belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a battlefield map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: Given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind enemy lines and sabotage their airplanes and war matériel.

No publicity, no media. We move in silently, do our job, and melt away into the background. If you have the stamina, the willpower and the guts, we'll welcome you with open arms and make you one of us. And if you haven't, then it's been very nice knowing you. Eighteen years in the SAS saw Pete Winner, codenamed Soldier 'I', survive the savage battle of Mirbat, parachute into the icy depths of the South Atlantic at the height of the Falklands War and storm the Iranian Embassy during the most famous hostage crisis in the modern world.

January 1991: IRAQ. Eight members of the SAS regiment embark upon a top-secret mission to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines. Under the command of Sergeant Andy McNab, they are to sever a vital underground communication link and to seek and destroy mobile Scud launchers. Their call sign: BRAVO TWO ZERO. Each laden with 15 stones of equipment, they tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. After a fierce fire fight, they are forced into evasive action. Four men are captured. Three die. Only one escapes.

Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man—a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness. Now, he is going to prove that for him, there's no gray area between killing for a living-and killing to stay alive.

Why we think it’s a great listen: A performance so poignant, we gave Bronson Pinchot (yes, Balki from Perfect Strangers) our inaugural Narrator of the Year award.... In the monsoon season of 1968-69 at a fire support base called Matterhorn, located in the remote mountains of Vietnam, a young and ambitious Marine lieutenant wants to command a company to further his civilian political ambitions. But two people stand in his way.

The President of the United States can’t decide how to respond to a classified video showing the Taliban’s brutal treatment of their captive - a female helicopter pilot of the Army’s elite Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Afraid that a botched rescue will further destabilize foreign policy and end his presidency, the Commander-in-Chief falters. But when the Special Ops community learns that one of their own is being tortured and will almost certainly be killed, no executive order will stop them from attempting a rescue mission.

Michael Valentine, veteran and former member of an elite private military company, has been recruited by the government to conduct a secret counter-terror operation in the Persian Gulf nation of Zubara. The unit is called Dead Six. Their mission is to take the fight to the enemy and not get caught. Lorenzo, assassin and thief extraordinaire, is being blackmailed by the world's most vicious crime lord. His team has to infiltrate the Zubaran terrorist network and pull off an impossible heist or his family will die.

A British Army bomb-disposal expert goes undercover to try to identify the source of the bombs being used by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Pray for Us Sinners, a thrilling novel by New York Times best seller Patrick Taylor. In Belfast in 1973 the Troubles are raging. Two Ulstermen. Two sides. On one, British Army bomb-disposal officer Marcus Richardson; on the other, Davy MacCutcheon, Provisional IRA armourer who has been constructing bombs since his teens. Both men are committed to their causes until events shatter their beliefs, leaving each with a crisis of faith and an overpowering need to get out - but with honour.

In 2061 a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world. A desperate plan is formed: recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.

The end begins with a viral outbreak unlike anything mankind has ever encountered before. The infected are subject to delirium, fever, a dramatic increase in violent behavior, and a one-hundred percent mortality rate. Death. But it doesn't end there. The victims return from death to walk the earth. When a massive military operation fails to contain the plague of the living dead it escalates into a global pandemic.

Patrick Taylor’s first novel of the Irish Troubles, Pray for Us Sinners, introduced us to Provisional IRA bombmaker Davy MacCutcheon and the love of his life, Fiona Kavanagh. Davy planned to leave the Provos after one final mission. But the deadly mission backfired, and Davy ended up in prison. Six years later, in Now and in the Hour of Our Death, Fiona Kavanagh has found sanctuary in Vancouver, Canada. But news of a breakout at the Maze prison brings back memories she thought she’d left behind.

The Spandau Diary -- what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in this new conflict about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II have to be rewritten as the future hung over a nightmare abyss?

This set includes Crash Dive, What Comes Around, and White Death, three Alex Hawke novellas never available before on audio. In Crash Dive, Alex Hawke is on a highly covert mission to enter another nation’s airspace undetected and find a way to avert a global war. In What Comes Around, two CIA officers are found dead. Hawke discovers that the victims are connected through one man: Spider Payne, a rogue intelligence officer. In White Death, M16 suspects a bizarre conspiracy when two bankers are found dead, and vast sums are plundered from the Queen of England’s accounts.

In Paris, an elderly man is assassinated as he takes his morning walk. In the war-torn cities of Syria, government forces wage a bloody war against their own people. The Russians are propping up the government, the French are backing one rebel fraction and the British are backing another. And in north Africa, young SAS trooper Jamie Truman is coming to the end of a gruelling tour of duty, or so he thinks. Jamie has a new mission.

It is the spring of 1945. And Repp, the master sniper, is about to carry out his final mission – even as Germany’s enemies overrun it, even while a tired, disorganized team of American and British agents tries everything in its power to stop him. Because for Repp, this is the job at which he cannot fail. For this time, he possesses the ultimate killing tool. And with it, he will commit the ultimate crime.