Nick Stone

Ex-deniable operator Nick Stone has spent a lifetime in harm's way - but when someone he cares for very deeply is murdered in cold blood, he can no longer just take the pain. A high-level internecine conflict at the dark heart of the resurgent Russian Empire and an assassin's bullet on an isolated Alpine pass propel him from an apparently run-of-the-mill close-protection task into his most brutal and challenging mission yet. As the body count increases, Stone becomes one of Europe's most wanted.

Out on the ice, polar bears aren't the only natural born killers. Nick Stone is suffering. The two people he cared for most are gone. Thousands of miles away, five ex-servicemen, badly wounded in Afghanistan, are preparing for a trek to the North Pole in an attempt to begin to rebuild their shattered bodies and minds. When Stone is summoned as close protection for the trek by an old SAS officer, he accepts unthinkingly, desperate for the chance to escape his own misery.

Nick Stone is back in London, but if he thought he was home for a break, he's very, very wrong. Backed into a corner by a man he knows he cannot trust, ex-deniable operator Nick Stone strikes a devil's bargain. In exchange for his own safety - a life for a life - Stone is charged with locating someone who doesn't want to be found, currently hiding out in the one of the remotest corners of the UK. And for the first time in a long time, he's not operating alone.