Hard Landing [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Stephen Leather (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 2004

Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line as a detective in an elite undercover squad. But when a powerful drugs baron starts to kill off witnesses to his crimes, he faces his most dangerous assignment yet - undercover in a top security prison, where one wrong move will mean certain death.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Leather is in the top rank of thriller writers. -- Jack Higgins --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shoveled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV. You can find out more from his website, www.stephenleather.com. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Isis Audio; Unabridged edition (December 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753123150
• ISBN-13: 978-0753123157
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 7.6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,125,005 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen Leather was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. You can find out more from his website, www.stephenleather.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spider Shepherd, a British Chuck Norris?, December 30, 2010

By 

David Dalton "Coach D" (Lawton, Ok) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Hard Landing: The First Spider Shepherd Thriller (A Dan Shepherd Mystery) (Kindle Edition)

I just finished reading Hard Landing, my first Stephen Leather action thriller I read on my Kindle. I was posting back & forth with the author in an effort to let him know that his action stories were NOT available to U.S. customers. Finally several of his titles did become available and I jumped right on a few and picked up Hard Landing and The Vets. Stephen Leather's novels have action, suspense, and well crafted characters. I definitely want to read the further adventures of Dan `Spider' Shepherd (the main character in Hard Landing). About 5 years ago I read "The Chinaman" by Leather (paperback), and I have "The Eyewitness" on my shelf right now. I was looking forward to being able to read all of Leather's action style thrillers on my Kindle. Spider Shepherd is a tough as nails character (a British Chuck Norris?) that I found fun to read about. Shepherd had to go undercover in a Category A prison. Not for the faint of heart. I was so caught up in the last 20% of the book that I seem to be reading the book faster and faster! As if reading it faster made any difference.

Overall I enjoyed the book very much and I am looking forward to reading more stories about Spider Shepherd. In the next couple of weeks I plan on reading The Vets by Stephen Leather as well. Hopefully by then the rest of the Dan Shepherd novels will be AVAILABLE once again on U.S. Kindles (at one point there were about 12 of Stephen Leather's action thrillers for sale on U.S. Amazon. Then about 6 or 7 of them were pulled back for formatting problems).

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New literary Tough Guy hits the ground running, February 14, 2007

By 

Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Hard Landing (A Dan Shepherd Mystery) (Paperback)

HARD LANDING was the first in the Stephen Leather's series of thrillers starring Dan "Spider" Shepherd, an ex-SAS trooper now assigned to an elite Metropolitan police unit tabbed for deep undercover operations when the usual enforcement methods can't nab the bad guys. Dan's nickname came to be while on an SAS survival training mission and he won a bet on who could eat the most disgusting thing. One normally doesn't see "tarantula" on the menu even in the greasiest curry house.

HARD LANDING was followed by Soft Target and Cold Kill (Dan Shepherd Mysteries), all three of which I've unintentionally read in reverse order. I'd recommend reading the first book first since, if nothing else, the series is a character development exercise for the protagonist.

Here, Spider is tossed into one of Her Majesty's maximum security prisons after establishing his cover as an armed desperado on an airport warehouse hold-up gone bad. Dan's mission is to nail big-time drug trafficker Gerald Carpenter, currently in the same lock-up awaiting trial. Carpenter is somehow communicating with the outside and masterminding the quashing of evidence and killing of witnesses that would otherwise convict him. Fearing Gerald will ultimately go free, Shepherd's job is to identify the leak and thus ensure Carpenter's conviction.

Spider's job prevents him from having a normal home life with his wife Sue and son Liam, a fact that causes the inevitable friction with the former and neglect of the latter and which is exacerbated by a tragedy that occurs while Dan is behind bars. I previously mentioned in my review of SOFT TARGET (dated 11/4/06 and entitled "A whopping cell phone bill, no doubt") that the author perhaps dwelled too much on Spider's spotty relationship with his son, which caused me to knock off a star from that otherwise splendid tale. With Shepherd, I'm looking for hard-boiled action not agonized soul-searching. (My other favorite fictional Tough Guy, Lee Child's Jack Reacher, never ever moons about engaging in self-castigating guilt trips.) I gave COLD KILL five stars (dated 6/29 06 and entitled "How hardball do we play it?") because it maximized the action and minimized the hand-wringing, and I'm giving HARD LANDING a full allocation of points for the same reason.

Until commencing with the Dan Shepherd series, Leather had pretty much eschewed an ongoing hero beyond a couple of books. With Spider, Stephen has struck gold, and I'm eagerly awaiting the fourth installment, HOT BLOOD.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent action thriller, February 7, 2006

By 

Max Power "Maxi" (Perth, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hard Landing (A Dan Shepherd Mystery) (Paperback)

This is a well written and enjoyable thriller that one is keen to plough through in good time. Although not exactly full of surprise or suspense it is engaging from the start. There is one shocking twist but it is largely immaterial to the main storyline so arguably pointless.

My only real criticism of the book is the terrible proof-reading. It is literally filled with typos, so much so that it becomes distracting towards the end of the book.

That said, an entertaining read.