Michael Bale Books in Order

The Michael Bale novels, sometimes referred to as The Protector series, trade legionary shields for modern body armour. Set in contemporary London, they follow Metropolitan Police close protection officer Mickey Bale, a man whose job is to stand between powerful people and sudden violence.

In Nemesis, Bale is assigned to guard the Minister of Defence at a time when relations between Britain and China are stretched thin. He is expected to be calm, watchful and politically discreet. Off the clock, though, he is driven by something far more personal. A London crime family sold the ecstasy pill that killed his sister, and Mickey has decided to take them apart piece by piece.

That double life pulls him into gangland clubs, anonymous industrial estates and quiet back streets, even as he keeps turning up in a suit and earpiece for official duties. Riches uses the contrast to explore how much violence a man can justify to himself, and what happens when a professional guardian starts to look a lot like a one man vendetta.

Target Zero finds Mickey in even deeper water. His marriage has failed, his career with the Met is wrecked and his skills are now hired by a Russian oligarch who likes the idea of an ex police bodyguard. When a terrorist attack kills a police firearms team using a stolen missile warhead, the security services suspect Mickey's new employer is involved. MI5 leans on him to work as a reluctant double agent.

From that point, the stakes become global. Mickey has to juggle a paranoid client, British intelligence officers who see him as expendable and the terrifying knowledge that more warheads are at large. The action ranges from high security compounds to crowded British streets, always with the clock ticking toward another catastrophe.

Despite the modern setting, these books share a lot with Riches's Roman fiction. They lean on careful research into weapons, procedures and the small routines of professional security work, and they keep the focus on a man whose loyalty is under constant, very human strain.

Read as a pair, Nemesis and Target Zero tell a complete arc about grief, revenge and the cost of trying to live in both the official and the criminal worlds. You can dip into either, but starting with Mickey's first descent into vigilantism makes the later compromises hit harder.