NINE LIVES A novel by Paul Smith He was just a boy when it started ? beaten at home, hunted at school, wired for survival. Bosnia showed him what men become when the rules disappear. Northern Ireland showed him how quietly killing can be done ? inside The Det, a deniable special forces unit set up to carry out jobs that could never be acknowledged. No paperwork. No cover. If it went wrong, you were denied. If it went right, it never happened. When the uniform came off, the spooks picked him up and moved him on ? Afghanistan, Iraq ? mercenary contracts where money flowed, rules didn't exist, and the damage went deeper. By twenty-three, he'd lost count of the bodies ? and stopped feeling anything at all. But the fighting followed him home. From warzones to the Manchester ganglands, the places changed but the pattern stayed the same: violence, survival, and another piece of himself gone. He should have died nine times ? bullets, bombs, fire, his own hand. War didn't just teach him how to kill. It taught him how to switch everything else off. Until one girl reaches into the wreckage ? and saves him from losing his last life. Cold. Honest. Uncomfortable to read. Relentlessly British. Nine Lives isn't just about war ? it's about what war makes of men, and what's left when the killing stops. Part war story. Part psychological thriller. And all of it feels too real to be fiction. 👉 For readers who know the war doesn't end when the fighting stops.