All this secrecy is good for the image but I wonder, isn’t it just a little over the top? Can’t I just look up the citation for CBE, won’t that be in his real name? ‘No, it was Andy McNab.’ Doesn’t that make it invalid then? ‘No, it’s the same as if you’ve got a stage name, like Elton John.’ Home for McNab is in Cornwall, but of course he won’t say where. The latest is Cold Blood, an action thriller about a group of wounded ex-soldiers trying to reach the North Pole. And with the help of his wife – who was in publishing when they married 17 years ago – McNab moved on from memoirs to fiction and has had phenomenal success on both sides of the Atlantic, shifting tens of millions of copies and achieving eight Amazon number ones.

He made it out with nerve damage to his hands, a dislocated shoulder, damage to his internal organs and hepatitis B – as well as a Military Medal and a great story to tell.īravo Two Zero was published in 1993 and is still the best-selling military history book of all time. Three men were killed, McNab and four others were caught, imprisoned and tortured before release six weeks later. They met after he had left the SAS in the Nineties and published Bravo Two Zero, a thrilling account of the mission he led behind enemy lines during the first Gulf War. Sounds like Mrs McNab doesn’t take any nonsense, but then Jenny is his fifth wife. All this secrecy is good for the image but I wonder, isn’t it just a little over the top? Above: McNab in a balaclava at an FBI training camp

Andy mcnab the one that got away