Dan Taylor Books in Order

The Dan Taylor books sit firmly on the spy thriller side of Rachel Amphlett's work, but they are not built around a slick, untouchable secret agent. They begin with a man who has already been through serious damage. Dan is a former British Army bomb disposal expert, and from the start his past in Iraq is not just backstory. It shapes how he thinks, who he trusts, and why he keeps getting pulled toward danger instead of away from it.

The short prequel, The Legacy Device, shows Dan on his last tour of duty and hints at the larger machinery moving behind the scenes. White Gold picks up later, when he is scarred, drifting, and close to falling apart after an IED attack killed members of his team. The murder of an old friend drags him back into action, and that movement, from personal grief to international conspiracy, is one of the things that gives the series its kick.

As the books go on, Dan becomes tied to efforts to protect Britain's energy supplies and national security. That gives this series a particular identity. These stories care about gas facilities, radioactive material, stolen technology, cyber security, covert operations, and the sort of political decisions that can put lives at risk far beyond the room where they were made. Under Fire, Three Lives Down, and Behind the Wire all build on that idea, mixing geopolitics with pursuit, field work, and the constant sense that one bad call could have very large consequences.

The stakes are big, but the tension usually feels personal first.

Dan is not written as an effortless action hero. He is capable, stubborn, and very good under pressure, but he pays for the life he has lived. That gives the action some weight. So do the settings. Amphlett moves him through deserts, cities, winter crises, and unstable political flashpoints, and she likes showing how a mission can depend on timing, logistics, and local knowledge just as much as weapons or bravado.

If you like your thrillers to carry an underlying arc, this is a series best read in order, especially from The Legacy Device through Behind the Wire. Relationships, loyalties, and earlier choices keep echoing forward. What you get overall is a run of modern espionage novels that mix military experience, energy politics, and straight-up suspense, without forgetting that the man at the center is still trying to outrun the damage done to him years earlier.