Terence Strong Books in Order
Explore Terence Strong's books in order, with short summaries, publication order, and a clear guide to where to start with his SAS and espionage thrillers.
Last updated: July 6, 2026
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Publication Order
17 books
Whisper Who Dares
by Terence Strong
1982
In 1970s Northern Ireland, a four-man SAS team is sent deep into the IRA's hidden machinery after reports of a terrifying new threat. The mission is secret, brutal, and dangerously personal, with love and betrayal tangled up in the violence.
Dragonplague
by Terence Strong
1988
Fresh out of prison, ex-Royal Marine Billy Robson wants one honest chance to rebuild his life. Instead he is drawn into a widening network of corruption, drugs, and terror, and must protect his family before the trap closes for good.
That Last Mountain
by Terence Strong
1989
SAS sergeant-major Brian Hunt is sent to pull a defecting Soviet scientist out of Stockholm. A ruthless Spetsnaz rival is closing in, and the chase soon spills into the Scandinavian mountains, where loyalty, endurance, and survival are tested to the limit.
Conflict of Lions
by Terence Strong
1990
A supposedly quiet posting in West Africa turns savage when a tourist is found dead and political tension erupts into violence. Captain Johnny Fraser and his SAS team are pulled into a country sliding toward bloodshed, and into Fraser's unfinished past.
Stalking Horse
by Terence Strong
1994
Deep-cover operative Max Avery wants out after years inside the IRA, but the Gulf crisis gives London and Washington other plans. Thrust in with the SAS and Delta Force, he faces a mission where failure could cost his marriage, his future, and far more.
This Angry Land
by Terence Strong
1996
In Mozambique, former SAS sergeant Mike Branagh is trying to build a useful, quieter life far from Ulster and old violence. Then civil war surges back around him, forcing him to fight for the village, the people he loves, and his own battered conscience.
White Viper
by Terence Strong
1996
When a flood of branded cocaine hits Britain and America, governments turn to Kurt Mallory, an off-the-books infiltrator with SAS experience and few limits. His hunt through South America brings narcos, terror links, and old demons crashing together.
Rogue Element
by Terence Strong
1997
An undercover MI5 veteran is framed for a shocking murder after refusing one request too many. Only ex-SAS tracker Chris Lomax believes him, and his hunt for the truth leads straight toward a deadly conspiracy inside the secret state.
The Fifth Hostage
by Terence Strong
1997
A British journalist and his Norwegian lover know too much, and revolutionary Iran becomes their prison. Their only hope is an SAS rescue mission forced to move through hostile terrain, political panic, and a clock that keeps tightening.
The Tick Tock Man
by Terence Strong
1997
Bomb disposal expert Tom Harrison is called in as a new terrorist campaign grows deadlier with every device. The closer he gets to the truth, the more it seems someone is testing him personally, with no margin at all for error.
Deadwater Deep
by Terence Strong
1998
As Hong Kong passes to China, London and Washington weigh a secret plan to strike at Beijing's growing power. CIA man John Dancer and a risky submarine operation stand at the center of a geopolitical gamble that could reshape the balance of power.
Cold Monday
by Terence Strong
2004
Still haunted by his wife's murder in Bosnia, former SAS man Ed Coltrane hunts the killers across a changing Europe. What begins as revenge turns into a larger trap involving mafias, political secrets, and a betrayal that cuts far closer to home.
Wheels Of Fire
by Terence Strong
2005
Ex-SAS officer Jeff Hawkins is sent into Bosnia to help keep UN aid convoys moving through a war zone. As alliances crack and winter closes in, one massive run to Sarajevo becomes a terrifying journey along roads lined with hunger, fear, and gunfire.
President Down
by Terence Strong
2007
Private investigator and former intelligence operative Phil Mason takes a routine surveillance job that quickly turns deadly. After a suspect is found murdered, Mason uncovers signs of a planned strike on the US president and a traitor buried inside the British security world.
Sons of Heaven
by Terence Strong
2008
When a freighter vanishes while carrying arms for a terrorist faction, ex-SAS major Robert D'Arcy is dragged into a brutal game between kidnappers, intelligence agencies, and rival interests. The deeper he goes, the more the mission becomes a personal fight to stop a massacre.
Some Unholy War
by Terence Strong
2011
Broken by Afghanistan and struggling in civilian life, former SAS man Dave Aston stumbles onto a local drug network with links far beyond his quiet home town. What starts as personal revenge grows into a grim fight against gang violence, corruption, and hidden state deals.
Word of War
by Terence Strong
2017
As Libya collapses in the Arab Spring, ex-Royal Marine James Royce is pulled into a covert MI6 mission alongside the shadowy E Squadron SAS. A reluctant journalist at his side turns the operation into a dangerous race through chaos, secrets, and the early rise of Islamic State.
Where should I start?
If you want the classic starting point: Whisper Who Dares → The Fifth Hostage → Conflict of Lions
If you want his tensest bomb and counter-terror story: The Tick Tock Man → Rogue Element
If you prefer large-scale espionage and geopolitics: That Last Mountain → Deadwater Deep → President Down
If you want the later, grittier books: Cold Monday → Some Unholy War → Word of War
Author bio
Terence Strong was born in London just after World War Two and spent his early childhood in Battersea, near the Thames. His mother, Pearl, was a nurse, and his father, Cyril, had served as a submariner. Postwar London gave him plenty to look at, bomb sites, Battersea Park, and long museum days in Kensington, and all of that later fed the eye for place in his thrillers.
He came to books a little later than some writers do.
At eight he started reading library books, then found Biggles and tore through adventure fiction. After the family moved to Chessington when he was eleven, a teacher named Mrs Melsom encouraged his imagination and let him write and direct a classroom western. He also tried his own early stories, including a teenage novel that borrowed freely from the heroes he loved.
Strong did not take a tidy, straight road into publishing. He worked first in advertising, then wrote freelance pieces, and by twenty he had become editor of News Trade Weekly, a trade paper where he got to interview established writers and learn how books were made, sold, and talked about. Later he worked in publicity at New English Library and set up his own marketing business with his wife, Linda.
All the while, he was storing up material.
A parallel interest in modern military history and war gaming pushed him deeper into research. He worked with people from across the armed services and helped develop published war game rules, experience that gave his fiction its practical feel. After a redundancy in the late 1970s, he used the breathing room to draft Whisper Who Dares, his breakthrough novel about the SAS. When the regiment shot into public view during the 1979 Iranian Embassy siege, he sensed the timing was right. The book appeared in 1982 and became an instant bestseller, eventually selling more than a million copies in the UK.
From there he built a long run of stand-alone thrillers that moved across continents but kept a steady grip on soldiers, spies, and people under pressure. The Fifth Hostage heads into revolutionary Iran. That Last Mountain turns a defection plot into a brutal chase through Scandinavian terrain. The Tick Tock Man drops into the tense world of bomb disposal, while Deadwater Deep and Word of War widen the frame to global intelligence games in China and Libya.
What readers tend to like in Strong is the sense that the machinery of the plot has actually been thought through. His books are full of special forces work, covert operations, terrorism, and international politics, but they are not just about gear or tactics. Again and again, he writes about loyalty, betrayal, damaged veterans, and men and women trying to keep hold of a moral line when the job itself is built on secrecy.
He has also said that character matters as much as action, and he has spoken about wanting believable dialogue and stronger roles for women in adventure fiction. That helps explain why books like White Viper, Cold Monday, and Some Unholy War mix hard-edged action with people who are bruised, stubborn, and not always easy to save.
Strong is still an active writer, with later novels, reissues, and an author site that shows the same long interest in military affairs and geopolitics. The through line is easy to spot, a postwar London boy who turned research, curiosity, and a taste for danger into a long career in thrillers.
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