High Risk

Ben Timberlake's memoir follows a life spent across several careers that rarely fit together. He worked as an archaeologist, served as a special forces soldier and combat medic, and at other times was held by drug addiction. Running through all of it was a hunger for the rush, and that appetite often pushed him to the brink. Rather than questioning the impulse, he kept asking why not. The book is dark and raw, and it blends personal confession, straightforward reportage and sharp, caustic humour. Its gonzo-style eye turns on terrorists, addicts, soldiers and strippers.

The story opens with Ben's first brush with death, in a Nazi-themed bar in wartime Yugoslavia. From there it ranges widely, covering his time in the SAS, fighting in Iraq, encounters with a 9/11 hijacker obsessed with gambling, and dealings with mercenaries fuelled by steroids.

The memoir also visits veterans high on MDMA, the underground world of extreme sex, and a struggle with a heroin habit on a remote Scottish island.