Book review: Hard Landing - Stephen Leather

Title: Hard Landing

Author: Stephen Leather

FICTION

Genre: Thriller

Ranking: 8.0 out of 10.0

Buy: Yes

Borrow: Yes

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/HARD-LANDING-Spider-Shepherd-Thriller/dp/0340734116/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Summary:  Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. He was with the SAS until his wife persuaded him to move. He is now working as an undercover detective for an elite police squad. 

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 gain the confidence of his quarry, he 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.

Main review: 

The first book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. His latest is no 13!

Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line, firstly as a member of the SAS and then - after being persuaded by his wife to change - as an undercover detective with an elite police squad. When a powerful drugs baron starts to kill off witnesses to his crimes, Shepherd faces his most dangerous assignment yet – going undercover in a top security prison, where one wrong move will mean certain death.

Drugs baron Gerry Carpenter is being held on remand and is facing a long prison stretch. Customs and Excise and Drugs Squad detectives are celebrating victory over one of their most wanted targets. But the celebrations are premature. Carpenter is determined to regain his freedom and begins a campaign of terror on the outside. Witnesses are threatened, police officers killed, evidence is destroyed, and the case against him starts to fall apart.

Shepherd’s mission is to find out how Carpenter is managing to run his operation from this Category A prison. But to do that he has to stay undercover twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, surrounded by career criminals and psychopathic killers who can smell a cop a mile away.

And it’s only as Shepherd starts to get close to Carpenter that he realises just how dangerous he is. And how easily Carpenter can strike where it will hurt Shepherd most – at his family.

Further reading suggestion:  Dark Forces - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Forces-Spider-Shepherd-Thriller/dp/1473604095/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=