Michael Asher Books In Order

The Flaming Sword

It’s Egypt, October 1942. The battle for North Africa rages fiercely along the length of the Egyptian coast…
Punching their way deep behind enemy lines, the newly formed SAS under the enigmatic Lt Col David Stirling carries out daring raids against the Germans. Lt Tom Caine leads a small squad of SAS men on a desperate mission far into hostile territory. His brief: to sabotage a terrible weapon being secretly developed by the Na*zis in the desolate Libyan hills…
If he fails the Axis forces will almost certainly be unstoppable. Caine faces the full force of the German military might, but what he doesn’t know is that there is a traitor among his own men. Ultimately, his fate will rest in the hands of one woman, Special Ops agent Betty Nolan. Only one thing is for certain in this war who dares wins…

Two Against the Sahara

The story of how Michael Asher and Mariantoinetta Peru succeeded in crossing the 4500 miles of the Sahara from west to east with camels and a series of guides in 1986, a feat no other Westerner had accomplished. An added complication was that they had been married only five days before and the desert world exposed the flaws in their relationship. Despite this, their committment bound them together and the book reveals the courage and determination with which they tackled one of the world’s greatest deserts, as well as the picture of an ancient world threatened by Western culture and ravaged by famine and drought. Michael Asher is also author of ‘In Search of the Forty Days Road’ and ‘A Desert Dies’, both set in the Sudan.

Shoot to Kill

In 1971 Michael Asher joined the Parachute Regiment of the British Army. This book tells of Asher’s experiences as he was subjected to deliberate intimidation by instructors, as injury, and even in some cases death, weeded out his fellow recruits. ‘Shoot to Kill‘ describes the author’s recruitment experience as well as the subsequent eight years in which he journeyed from the streets of Belfast, and the bloody hills of Armagh; to SAS selection and resistance to interrogation procedures and the mysteries of ‘the killing house’. This book tells of Asher’s attempt to come to terms with the dark side that exists in every personality.

Thesiger

In 1979, the author of this work read ‘Arabian Sands’ by W. Thesiger, which had an impact on his life and made him become a desert explorer. In tribute to Thesiger, he has written this biography of Thesiger‘s motivations and achievements. A man of great paradoxes and contradictions, Thesiger revered traditional peoples, but retained at the same time a profound pride in his own race and background. He felt most intensely alive when living on the same level as his tribal companions, yet rejoiced in his ability to return to the ‘civilized’ world. Basing much of his work on extended interviews with Thesinger, the author also follows in Thesinger’s footsteps, interviewing many of his former travelling companions and throwing new light on the celebrated Arabian expeditions.

Lawrence

‘Lawrence of Arabia ‘ began World War I as a map clerk and ended it as one of the great figures of the war. He altered the face of the Middle East, and almost single handedly formulated many of the precepts of modern guerrilla warfare. Yet he refused any honors for his achievements and spent much of the rest of his life in the ranks of the army and the Royal Air Force, in near obscurity.

Lawrence deliberately turned his life into a conundrum and set out to mystify those who came after him beginning with his own account of the Arab Revolt, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, in 1926 thereby assuring his place as a mythical cult figure for posterity. He saw himself as an intellectual rather than a soldier, and a wanderer after sensations rather than a man of action. He wore an endless series of masks.

But who was the real man behind these disguises? Desert explorer and Arab scholar Michael Asher set out to solve this riddle of appearances. Retracing many of Lawrence‘s desert journeys, he gained startling new insights into his character. The result is a biography that captures the elusive man behind the myth.

The Real Bravo Two Zero

‘Bravo Two Zero’ was the code name of the famous SAS operation: a classic story of bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. BRAVO TWO ZERO by patrol commander ‘Andy McNab’ became an international bestseller, as did the book by ‘Chris Ryan’ THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY. Both men became millionaires. Three members of the patrol were killed. One, veteran sergeant Vince Phillips, was blamed in both books for a succession of mistakes. As Michael Asher reveals, the stories in BRAVO TWO ZERO and THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY grew considerably in the telling. Their heroic tales of taking out tanks with their rocket launchers, mowing down hundreds of Iraqi soldiers, the silent stabbing of the occasional sentry, were never mentioned at their post war debriefings…
In an investigation literally in the footsteps of the patrol, Michael Asher tells the true story.

Khartoum

The British campaign in the Sudan in Queen Victoria’s reign is an epic tale of adventure more thrilling than any fiction. The story begins with the massacre of the 11,000 strong Hicks Pasha column in 1883. Sent to evacuate the country, British hero General Gordon was surrounded and murdered in Khartoum by an army of dervishes led by the Mahdi. The relief mission arrived 2 days too late. The result was a national scandal that shocked the Queen and led to the fall of the British government. Twelve years later it was the brilliant Herbert Kitchener who struck back. Achieving the impossible he built a railway across the desert to transport his troops to the final devastating confrontation at Omdurman in 1898. Desert explorer and author, Michael Asher has reconstructed this classic tale in vivid detail. Having covered every inch of the ground and examined all eyewitness reports, he brings to bear new evidence questioning several accepted aspects of the story. The result is an account that sheds new light on the most riveting tale of honour, courage, revenge and savagery of late Victorian times.

Sands of Death

In December 1880 a French expedition attempted to map a route for a railway that would stretch from their colony in Algeria right across the Sahara desert to reach their territories in West Africa. ‘Paris to Timbuctoo in Six Days’ was the slogan. It would do for the French colonies what the American railways were doing in the western states at the same time. No native opposition was expected. As one of the expedition’s organizers said, ‘A hundred uncivilized tribesmen armed with old fashioned spears: what is that against the might of France?’ Four months later, a handful of emaciated survivors staggered into a remote outpost on the edge of the desert. Although armed with modern rifles, the column had been lured to destruction by the self styled ‘lords of the desert’, the Tuareg. At this, the highpoint of European colonialism in Africa, this story of treachery, massacre, torture and even cannibalism made headlines around the world. Attacked by the Tuareg in their remote heartland, the survivors had been pursued for weeks on end, driven into the waterless desert to die. The desperate lengths they resorted to shocked Victorian sensibilities. They do not make easy reading now. This grisly story, told by our greatest living desert explorer reveals what happened when the conceit of western colonialism met the equally arrogant Tuareg, who had dominated this remote region, and anyone trying to cross it, for a thousand years.

The Regiment

On 4 May 1980, seven terrorists holding twenty one people captive in the Iranian Embassy in London’s Prince’s Gate, executed their first hostage. They threatened to kill another hostage every thirty minutes until their demands were met. Minutes later, armed men in black overalls and balaclavas shimmied down the roof on ropes and burst in through windows and doors. In seconds all but one of the terrorists had been shot dead, the other captured. For most people, this was their first acquaintance with a unit that was soon to become the ideal of modern military excellence the Special Air Service regiment. Few realized that the SAS had been in existence for almost forty years, playing a discreet, if not secret, role almost everywhere Britain had fought since World War II, and had been the prototype of all modern special forces units throughout the world. In ‘The Regiment‘, Michael Asher a former soldier in 23 SAS Regiment examines the evolution of the special forces idea and investigates the real story behind the greatest military legend of the late twentieth century.