Desperate Measures

She put her life on the line for her family. But now it's time to pay the price.

All Malee wanted was a better life for herself and her son. And the only way she could make that happen was to sell her body, to exchange sex for money.

But her plan falls apart when she arrives in London at the start of the Covid pandemic.

She risks everything to support her family - but as the country goes into lockdown she runs into Russian gangsters who have their own plans for her.

Before long the Russians are forcing her to work for them. If she refuses, they'll kill her. Now it's not about working for a better life - now it's a matter of survival.

Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. He was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series. Two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were made into movies and his bestselling novel The Chinaman was filmed as The Foreigner, starring Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan.

Praise for Stephen Leather:



He has the uncanny knack of producing plots that are all too real - Daily Mail


The sheer impetus of his storytelling is damned hard to resist. - Daily Express


A master of the thriller genre. - Irish Times