Eight Lives Down—The Story of a Counterterrorist Bomb-disposal Operator's Tour in Iraq

Visceral and compelling, Eight Lives Down is the most exciting and nerve-jangling work of military non-fiction since Bravo Two Zero.

If fate is against me and I’m killed, so be it, but make it quick and painless. If I’m wounded, don’t let me be crippled. But above all, don’t let me fuck up the task.

So goes the bomb technician’s prayer before every bomb he defuses. For Chris Hunter, it is a prayer he says many times during his four-month tour of Iraq. His is the most dangerous job in the world — to make safe the British sector in Iraq against some of the most hardened and technically advanced terrorists in the world. It is a 24/7 job — in the first two months alone, his team defuses over 45 bombs. And the people they’re up against don’t play by the Geneva Convention. For them, there are no rules, only results — death by any means necessary.

The job of a Bomb Disposal officer is a lonely one. You are alone with the sound of your own breathing and the drumming of your heart in a protective suit in forty-plus degrees of heat. The drawbridge has been pulled up behind you as you advance on your goal. It’s just you and the bomb.

But for Chris Hunter, just when life couldn’t get any more dangerous, the stakes are raised again.


From the Hardcover edition.

Chris Hunter retired in March 2007 from the Defense Intelligence Staff, where he was the MOD’s senior IED intelligence analyst. He is a former chairman of the Technical Committee of the Institute of Explosives Engineers and continues to work as a counterterrorism consultant. He works regularly with U.S. military and law enforcement personnel, including a number of government agencies and the U.S. Special Forces. He has served on numerous operations in the Balkans, East Africa, Northern Ireland, Colombia, and Afghanistan and was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for his actions during his tour in Iraq. He lives with his wife and two daughters in the west of England.