Duncan Falconer Books in Order

If you want the main Stratton story from the start: The Hostage/Stratton → The Hijack → The Bomb Surgeon/The Operative → Undersea Prison
If you want the later, bigger-threat Stratton books: Mercenary → Traitor → Pirate → Assassin
If you want a war-zone thriller outside the series: The Protector
If you want Falconer's real-life background first: First Into Action
If you want a newer spy thriller with a different lead: The Becket Approval

Duncan Falconer was born in London and spent his early childhood in an orphanage in North London before moving to Battersea, where he was adopted and went to school.

His route into writing was not a straight one.

As a teenager he joined the Royal Marines. At 19 he went through Special Boat Squadron selection in Poole, Dorset, and only nine men from a field of almost 150 got through. He went on to spend about 12 years in the SBS, including anti-terrorist undercover work and time with 14 Intelligence Detachment in Northern Ireland.

Those years shaped everything that came after.

When he left the service, Falconer did not settle into a quiet desk life. He worked in private security, then spent around 13 years in Los Angeles making a living as a screenwriter while also doing risk work. After 9/11 he returned to hostile-environment and security work, helping journalists and news crews move through dangerous places such as Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and parts of Africa, and later worked in crisis management around evacuations and kidnappings.

Writing started with a memoir. Falconer has said he was asked to write his autobiography, hired a professional writer for the opening, then read the first chapter and decided he could do a better job himself. The result was First Into Action, a book that follows Royal Marines training, SBS selection, covert work, and operations, while also giving space to the humour, rivalry, and strain inside military life.

That book opened the next door.

A publisher asked if he would like to try a novel, and Falconer turned to the world he knew best. He created John Stratton, an SBS operative written partly in his own image, and launched the series with The Hostage/Stratton. Books such as The Hijack, The Bomb Surgeon/The Operative, Undersea Prison, and Assassin keep pushing Stratton through kidnappings, covert missions, oil-rig assaults, war zones, and terrorist plots. Readers usually come for the pace, but they stay for the practical detail and the sense that the author understands how these jobs feel on the ground.

Falconer did not keep all of his fiction inside one lane. The Protector introduces Bernie Mallory, a former Royal Marine turned private security contractor, while The Becket Approval brings in MI6 field operator Devon Gunnymede. Across the books, the recurring interests are pretty clear: men and women under pressure, intelligence games, maritime operations, shifting loyalties, and the messy line between official orders and personal judgment. The 2017 film Stratton brought his best-known character to the screen, but the novels remain the fullest version of that world.

In recent years he has continued to write books and screenplays while describing a life spread between England, North America, and South Africa. What makes his work stand out is simple enough: the books feel lived in. They come from someone who has spent a long time in hard places, paying attention.