Tango One

In different parts of London, three recruits prepare for their first day at the Metropolitan Police's training centre at Hendon. All three had succeeded in getting into the police in spite of weaknesses. But on their first day, the assistant commissioner announces that he wants them to join a team of undercover detectives. Their brief To become criminals; to work their way up through whatever criminal organisations they can get access to, and to collate evidence against the criminals they come across. Their target One of the world's biggest drug dealers, Den Donovan, alias 'Tango One' - number one on HM Customs and Excise's List of most wanted criminals.

Three years later all the recruits are getting close to their target. Too close, perhaps, to remember the rules . . .

Short-listed for CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2002

“'This has everything a thriller should have - hectic action, characters you care about, and some unexpected twists and turns' - Nuneaton Evening Telegraph”

'The novel has everything one has come to expect in a Stephen Leather thriller - a fst, page-turning pace, characters you hate to love, a satisfying resolution in which justice is seen to be done (but one that would make the police cringe) and a thought-provoking premise that makes the reader delve into his or her own moral center.' - Deadly Pleasures -- Deadly Pleasures -- Nuneaton Evening Telegraph 19970801 'Stephen Leather should be nestling in your bookshelves alongside Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins ... Exciting stuff with plenty of heart-palpitating action ... Leather is an intelligent thriller writer' -- Daily Mail on THE TUNNEL RATS 'As high-tech and as world-class as the thriller genre gets' -- Sunday Express on THE BOMBMAKER 'A gripping story sped along by admirable, uncluttered prose' -- Daily Telegraph on THE CHINAMAN 'Leather, a former journalist, can dispense high-adrenaline plotting but never at the expense of remembering that his characters are humans rather than Action Dolls' -- Sunday Express 'A top-notch thriller which whips the reader along at breakneck speed' -- Yorkshire Post on THE LONG SHOT

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,

In different parts of London, three recruits prepare for their first day at the Metropolitan Police's training centre at Hendon. All three had succeeded in getting into the police in spite of weaknesses. But on their first day, the assistant commissioner announces that he wants them to join a team of undercover detectives. Their brief To become criminals; to work their way up through whatever criminal organisations they can get access to, and to collate evidence against the criminals they come across. Their target One of the world's biggest drug dealers, Den Donovan, alias 'Tango One' - number one on HM Customs and Excise's List of most wanted criminals. Three years later all the recruits are getting close to their target. Too close, perhaps, to remember the rules . . .

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