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A ticking bomb of a book; breathtakingly tense, fast-paced and incredibly moving. The best war memoir I've read in years -- Andy McNab You might expect an account of disabling bombs to be repetitive or overly technical, but Hunter's is neither. Each incident is fascinatingly different and edge-of-the-seat dramatic, and Hunter recounts them with vividness and clarity Daily Mail Thoughtful, gripping and engaging... The emotion, the immediacy, the adrenalin rush of what it feels like to walk towards a device that may or may not blow at any minute taking you and everyone in the proximity with it packs an authentic punch -- Kate Mosse The Times Chris Hunter is a very brave man. His work couldn't be more terrifying or necessary Daily Mirror Action-packed... A breathtaking story of courage and survival News of the World

A ticking bomb of a book; breathtakingly tense, fast-paced and incredibly moving. The best war memoir I've read in years -- Andy McNab You might expect an account of disabling bombs to be repetitive or overly technical, but Hunter's is neither. Each incident is fascinatingly different and edge-of-the-seat dramatic, and Hunter recounts them with vividness and clarity * Daily Mail * Thoughtful, gripping and engaging... The emotion, the immediacy, the adrenalin rush of what it feels like to walk towards a device that may or may not blow at any minute taking you and everyone in the proximity with it packs an authentic punch -- Kate Mosse * The Times * Chris Hunter is a very brave man. His work couldn't be more terrifying or necessary * Daily Mirror * Action-packed... A breathtaking story of courage and survival * News of the World *

A ticking bomb of a book; breathtakingly tense, fast-paced and incredibly moving. The best war memoir I've read in years -- Andy McNab You might expect an account of disabling bombs to be repetitive or overly technical, but Hunter's is neither. Each incident is fascinatingly different and edge-of-the-seat dramatic, and Hunter recounts them with vividness and clarity * Daily Mail * Thoughtful, gripping and engaging... The emotion, the immediacy, the adrenalin rush of what it feels like to walk towards a device that may or may not blow at any minute taking you and everyone in the proximity with it packs an authentic punch -- Kate Mosse * The Times * Chris Hunter is a very brave man. His work couldn't be more terrifying or necessary * Daily Mirror * Action-packed... A breathtaking story of courage and survival * News of the World *

A British Royal Logistic Corps captain shares his experiences of front-line service in Iraq.Trained in IRA and Colombian FARC tactics of bomb construction, 31-year-old Hunter shipped out to Iraq in 2004 for a 101-day tour disposing of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and rooting out bomber teams. Despite his disgruntled wife (she wanted him back home in Oxfordshire) and two small daughters, Hunter admits that after 13 years on the job he still found its dangers and risks exhilarating. That may not be the adjective that comes to readers' minds as they peruse his narrative, written as a present-tense diary of his tour of duty. IEDs created havoc for the troops in some 2,000 attacks a month, and sniffing out insurgents and their homemade bombs in a country where Westerners were angrily resented was perilous and extremely dicey work. Soldiers were both witting and unwitting provokers of disaster. Hunter saw a husband give his pregnant wife a severe beating after her burqa slipped and the British gazed at her face. He did nothing, he later explained to his men, because he'd heard about what happened when some fellow soldiers retaliated against a man who had beaten his 11-year-old daughter - the father cut her throat to save his honor. Neutralizing banks of explosives was a punishing, thankless task, and Hunter was frequently plagued by guilt and sadness about the violence he and the Americans inflicted. Eventually, he had to say goodbye to the other blokes (lots of jocular Briticisms here); he was promoted to major and got a desk job as a staff officer, leaving the situation in Iraq much the same as when he arrived. Ponderous platitudes from Gandhi to Gilda Radner form epigraphs to each chapter but don't add much gravitas.Hunter's prose is wooden, his experiences rather formulaic, but he offers singular glimpses of the Iraqis' harsh, hardscrabble lives. (Kirkus Reviews)

Action-packed... A breathtaking story of courage and survival * News of the World * Chris Hunter is a very brave man. His work couldn't be more terrifying or necessary * Daily Mirror * Thoughtful, gripping and engaging... The emotion, the immediacy, the adrenalin rush of what it feels like to walk towards a device that may or may not blow at any minute taking you and everyone in the proximity with it packs an authentic punch -- Kate Mosse * The Times * You might expect an account of disabling bombs to be repetitive or overly technical, but Hunter's is neither. Each incident is fascinatingly different and edge-of-the-seat dramatic, and Hunter recounts them with vividness and clarity * Daily Mail * A ticking bomb of a book; breathtakingly tense, fast-paced and incredibly moving. The best war memoir I've read in years -- Andy McNab

.,. packed with such powerful descriptions of coming under fire that at times you begin to imagine you have picked up the script for a Hollywood action movie. <br>-- London Lite <br> Will do for Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush what McNab did for Saddam and George Senior <br>-- Evening Standard <br> You're left in awe and wondering if we're paying Our Boys enough for going through this kind of hell. And doubting it. <br>-- Books Sport <p> From the Hardcover edition.

Author Information

Chris Hunter joined the British Army in 1989 at sixteen. He was commissioned from Sandhurst at twenty-one and later qualified as a counter-terrorist bomb disposal operator. He served with a number of specialist counter-terrorism units and during his career was deployed to numerous operational theatres, including the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Colombia, Afghanistan and Iraq. For his actions during his Iraq tour he was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal by HM Queen Elizabeth II.

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