Andy McNab

Andy McNab was born on December 28, 1959, and abandoned at a hospital in Southwark, London. He was found in a shopping bag from Harrods, cradled among newspapers. Despite this challenging start, he grew up to become a highly decorated soldier and a bestselling author.

Andy McNab joined the infantry as a boy soldier and later became a member of the 22 SAS Regiment in 1984. During his tenure with the SAS, he participated in various covert and overt special operations worldwide. His service included anti-terrorist and anti-drug operations in the Middle East, Far East, South and Central America, and Northern Ireland. Trained in counter-terrorism, demolitions, weapons and tactics, covert surveillance, and information gathering in hostile environments, McNab also worked as an instructor for the SAS selection and training team and instructed foreign special forces in counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, and survival training.

McNab has written about his experiences in the SAS in two bestselling books, Bravo Two Zero (1993) and Immediate Action (1995). Bravo Two Zero is the highest-selling war book of all time, with over 1.7 million copies sold in the UK. Immediate Action, McNab's autobiography, spent 18 weeks at the top of the bestseller lists. He has also written seven fast-action thrillers, all of which are highly acclaimed for their authenticity and have become Sunday Times bestsellers. The central character in these books is Nick Stone, a tough ex-SAS operative working on deniable operations for British Intelligence.

McNab's fiction draws extensively on his experiences and knowledge of Special Forces soldiering. He has been officially registered by Neilsen Bookscan as the bestselling British thriller writer of the last year. Besides his writing work, McNab lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK. He is also a patron of the Help for Heroes campaign, which supports military personnel who have been wounded or injured while serving.