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...