Some interesting facts about Chris Ryan, author of the Alpha Force series:

8 The number of days Chris Ryan spent in the Iraqi desert with no food and little water after the Bravo Two Zero mission went wrong during the first Gulf War in 1991

800,000 The number of copies sold of his book The One That Got Away, his account of the mission and his escape from enemy forces

5 million The total number of books he has sold in several genres

16 The age at which he unsuccessfully tried to join the Army

10 The number of years he spent in the SAS, completing both covert and overt missions

15 The number of spiders that crawled out of a wound he sustained during jungle training in Brunei

(If only a single spider crawled out of a wound I sustained I probably wouldn’t be here today – but then I’m not in the SAS.) Read the rest of the article about Chris Ryan.