Media & Press
Cobra Gold | Operation Certain Death | Bloody Heroes | Slave | Desert Claw
Cobra Gold
'As good as any thriller I have ever read'.
Freddie Forsyth
'Reveals a true story of British courage and daring.'
The Sunday Times
'Riveting.'
Richard & Judy Show
'Grotesque, glorious and utterly gripping.'
Bolton Evening News
'A rollercoaster journey into the very heart of darkness.'
The Gerry Ryan Show
'The most dramatic story of a secret wartime mission ever.'
News of the World
'Exciting and revelatory.'
Duncan Falconer
'A tremendous read.'
Max Arthur
"In 1976, a crack team blasted its way into Beirut's British bank of the Middle East and stole gold bars worth 100 million sterling at today's prices - making this the world's biggest ever bank heist. Niether the robbers nor the bullion were ver found - but now, with the story the basis of a major new bestseller, a remarkable theory has emerged."
The Mail on Sunday Live Magazine, Sunday 3rd June, 2007.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/live/live.html
"A Ryan show favourite, having experienced war, terror and espionage Damien Lewis is now writing about it, and his new book is an extraordinary account based upon a true story of the world's biggest bank robbery featuring special forces in Beirut, in the 1970s. It's a crime that was never solved and it's now a griping thriller called Cobra Gold. It's a cracker." Gerry Ryan, You can hear the full interview with Gerry Ryan at Gerry Ryan Show, 5th June, 2007-06-07 Damien's interview starts approx 2hrs 32mins into the show. This link requires the RealAudio player, which is vailable to download for FREE from www.real.com
"Tell the gripping story of the world's biggest bank robbery, and those who may have done it. Amazing and superb."
Sid Olivera, REM-FM
"Cobra Gold is a fast moving story built around the biggest bank robbery the world has ever seen. The story starts with a highly professional bank-heist in Beirut. The SAS team that break in are faced with a prize of staggering and unexpected proportions, then as courage, greed, opportunism and recklessness starts to unfold you get sucked into the problems of trying to hide, let alone dispose of a heavy and cumbersome mountain of gold valued at $50million. With an eye to technical accuracy, which is such a feature of Damien's writing, the tale finally brings us to the modern day. The terrorist organization that claims ownership of the gold and the authorities that send the team in to this most covert of covert operations are formidable adversaries and throwing them off the trail is no easy matter. This is modern drama at its best with Damien Lewis in top form."
A.J. Hogan, Compass Magazine
Operation Certain Death
What a story! As good as any thriller I have ever read. This really is the
low down.
-
Frederick Forsyth
It takes a special kind of writer to get behind the eyes and inside the mind,
hearts and brains of warriors, showing what makes them adapt, overcome and ultimately
prevail. Operation Certain Death is evocative proof that Damien Lewis had joined
this select company.
- John Weisman, New York Times bestselling author of SOAR: A Black Ops Mission,
Jack in the Box: A Shadow War Thriller and Direct Action.
When the SAS was told to rescue British soldiers in Sierra Leone, the odds
were so high the top brass warned of a possible disaster. Damien Lewis reveals
a true story of British courage and daring behind a rescue in the African
jungle, and reveals how they triumphed. The story begins .. Nosing their inflatables
up yet another vast sandbank, the SAS men gathered in the darkness. They were
exhausted, soaked to the skin, covered in mud from the river and eaten alive
by mosquitoes. The boat trip was clearly over. It was time to say goodbye.
The inflatables disappeared into the night, leaving ten men behind. They were
the advance party of one of the most hazardous mission ever undertaken by
the SAS ..
- Sunday Times, February 29th and March 7th, 2004
Return to Operation Certain Death, one of the most audacious and dangerous
hit and run military raids of the decade. An elite squad of shock troops stormed
the guerrilla camp where fellow British soldiers were being held hostage. Tonight
– the story of that ferocious firefight, the deliverance of the hostages
and the heavy price paid in blood by the terrorists. This is the riveting story
of how a small band of elite British soldiers fought a violent action against
terrorists, which is now a text book example of how to hit the enemy harder
than ever he thought possible. An intense firefight and one of the most difficult
operations the SAS has ever had to pull off.
- Richard & Judy, Channel 4
Operation Certain Death: the British forces were on hostile terrain and outnumbered
five to one. “There was full scale unlimited violence on sale,”
commented one SAS soldier. “Everyone wanted to be part of it.” When
elite British forces were sent in to the vicious heart of Sierra Leone on a
rescue mission, they vowed to kill each other rather than be taken alive. Sent
in to rescue 11 soldiers held hostage in the jungles of Sierra Leone, Britain’s
elite Special Forces ominously nicknamed their mission “Operation Certain
Death”. Flying in to assault a rebel base controlled by the infamous West
Side Boys gang, they knew they were outnumbered some five to one. “We
knew how cheap life was for the rebels, what they were capable of,” said
an SAS fighter. “It would be a slow, agonising, horrible death.
- NUTS Magazine, Issue 37
Damien Lewis’s book reveals the horror of the kidnapping of the British
soldiers in Sierra Leone in August 2000, and the lightning assault by British
Special Forces to rescue them.
- Sky News, March 2004
A rollercoaster journey into the very heart of darkness, made even more chilling
by the fact that this terrible tale is true.
- Gerry Ryan, RTE’s the Gerry Ryan Show
Sierra Leone, 2000. A civil war is in progress. Eleven Royal Irish Rangers
– there to train the shambolic Sierra Leone army – and one Sierra
Leonean soldier are captured by the main rebel group, the vicious West Side
Boys. Pumped up with drugs and voodoo beliefs, and packing some serious weaponry,
the West Side Boys (which includes plenty of girls) are a formidable fighting
force. A rescue mission in mounted, a joint UK forces operation, spearheaded
by the SAS. Nothing is spared in Lewis’s exciting and well-researched
book, which means there’s plenty of graphic – but not gratuitous
– violence. The UK troops are portrayed as exceptionally well trained
and committed fighting men, rather than as the supermen of media hyperbole.”
- Ink Magazine, May 2004, Review: Operation Certain Death.
“Grotesque, glorious and utterly gripping.”
- Bolton Evening News
“A powerful docu-novel, which conveys the danger of the operation and
courage of those who went into successfully rescue their colleagues.”
- Sunderland Echo
Bloody Heroes
Read Bloody Heroes serialisation in the News of the World
Slave
“Nazer provides beautiful and at times heart-wrenching accounts of the Nuba’s traditions…an important reminder of the real, lived terrors of thousands of black southern
Sudanese whose stories will never be told, and whose freedom may never be won.”
—The Washington Post
“Harrowing...[Nazer] describes being sold into servitude...a fate shared
by more than 11,000 people each year in Sudan alone."
—People Magazine
“[Nazer] dwells on her Nuba childhood with a childlike quality…Ultimately
[she] celebrates…rebellion against injustice and the triumph of the
human spirit.”
—The Economist
“A clear, compelling, first-person narrative that conveys [Mende’s]
young voice with powerful authenticity… the details are unforgettable,
capturing both the innocence of the child and the world-weariness of one who
has endured the worst.”
—Booklist
“Few [memoirs] are as starkly powerful as this one: Nazer tells her
story with lucid simplicity, deftly evoking her earlier self to convey that
girl’s innocence, violent loss, and compromise with survival.”
—The Onion
“Ultimately, Slave is the compelling memoir of one woman's
struggle to hang on to her humanity and of her continuing fight to stop others
from losing theirs.”
— The Kansas City Star
“Mende Nazer’s spirit echoes that of Sojourner
Truth’s during her journey from slave to freedom fighter… told
in a childlike voice that conveys innocence and honesty.”
— Orlando Sentinel
“[Nazer] tells her story of individual dignity combined with uncommon
courage.”
— The Denver Post
"Told with clarity and dignity... Surprisingly, a book about such a horrible
subject is uplifting: Slave is an inspiring testimonial to one young
woman's remarkable courage and unbreakable spirit."
— The Roanoke Times
“A shocking, true story of contemporary slavery… [Mende Nazer’s]
eventual and incredible journey into freedom is told simply and with grace
even under the circumstances.”
— Knoxville News-Sentinel
“By telling her story, Mende has managed to shed much needed light to
the plight of the rest of our African sisters and throughout it all, her strength
and beauty never fade.”
— Waris Dirie, author of Desert Flower
“An eye-opening account of the atrocities that can and do happen when
one nationality believes it is superior to another, and an unforgettable plea
for all people of all nations to focus on the importance of human rights and
to understand that we are all equal, all part of one human race, and therefore
should all be treated equally.”
— Norma Khouri, author of Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan
"Slave constitutes an act of tremendous courage. A solitary
and profoundly moving voice emerging from the most silenced of quarters."
— Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane
“A straightforward, harrowing memoir that’s a sobering reminder
that slavery still needs to be stamped out…a profound meditation on
the human ability to survive under virtually any circumstances.”
— Publishers Weekly
“The shockingly grim story of how the author became a slave at the end
of the 20th century—mercifully, it has an ending to lift the spirit…Revelatory
in the truest sense of the word: told with a child-pure candor that comes like
a bucket of cold water in the lap.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"As you read about Nazer's enslavement and her eventual run to freedom
in September 2000, you will weep, rage, and shout for justice. I couldn't put
it down."
— Libby Manthey, Riverwalk Books Limited, Chelan, WA
"[celebrates]...rebellion against injustice and the triumph of the human
spirit."
- The Economist, February 19, 2004
"Born into the Karko tribe in the Nuba mountains of northern Sudan, Nazer
has written a straightforward, harrowing memoir that's a sobering reminder
that slavery still needs to be stamped out. The first, substantial section
of the book concentrates on Nazer's idyllic childhood, made all the more poignant
for the misery readers know is to come. Nazer is presented as intelligent and
headstrong, and her people as peaceful, generous and kind. In 1994, around
age 12 (the Nuba do not keep birth records), Nazer was snatched by Arab raiders,
raped and shipped to the nation's capital, Khartoum, where she was installed
as a maid for a wealthy suburban family. (For readers expecting her fate to
include a grimy factory or barren field, the domesticity of her prison comes
as a shock.) To Nazer, the modern landscape of Khartoum could not possibly
have been more alien; after all, she had never seen even a spoon, a mirror
or a sink, much less a telephone or television set. Nazer's urbane tormentors-mostly
the pampered housewife-beat her frequently and dehumanized her in dozens of
ways. They were affluent, petty and calculatedly cruel, all in the name of "keeping
up appearances."
The contrast between Nazer's pleasant but "primitive" early life
and the horrors she experienced in Khartoum could hardly be more stark; it's
an object lesson in the sometimes dehumanizing power of progress and creature
comforts. After seven years, Nazer was sent to work in the U.K., where she
contacted other Sudanese and eventually escaped to freedom. Her book is a
profound meditation on the human ability to survive virtually any circumstances."
- Publishers Weekly
"The shock of this title is that it refers to what is happening
right now, in Sudan, Africa, and also in the West. Ten years ago, when Mende
Nazer was about 12 years old, she was captured in an Arab raid on her remote
Nuba village, and, with about 30 other black Muslim children, she was sold
into slavery. For eight years, she toiled as a domestic worker for a wealthy
family in Khartoum, beaten and abused by her vicious owners, who then sent
her to work for a relative in London, an important Sudanese diplomat. With
only broken English and no friends, she remained locked up and isolated until
finally she managed to escape and tell her story. And it doesn't end there:
the U.K. refused her asylum ("Slavery is not persecution"). Now
in 2003, the British government has given in to the global pressure of human-rights
groups and allowed her to stay. Journalist Lewis helped her escape, and he
spent months interviewing her. He tells her story in a clear, compelling,
first-person narrative that conveys her young voice with powerful authenticity.
Her memories of childhood in her Nuba village are idyllic (except for her
brutal circumcision, described in graphic detail). But the core of the book
is her daily labor and abuse as a house slave. The details are unforgettable,
capturing both the innocence of the child and the world-weariness of one who
has endured the worst."
- Booklist Hazel Rochman
KLIATT, July 2005
"A story of the triumph of the human spirit against oppressing odds."
Desert Claw
None yet available.