James Ashcroft - Making a Killing - The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq

The pay: $1,000 a day

The cost: Never knowing if you’ll make it out alive

When James ‘Ash’ Ashcroft, a former British Infantry Captain, arrived in Iraq as a ‘gun for hire’, it was the beginning of an 18-month journey into chaos and blood.

From the midst of a war where private soldiers outnumber non-US Coalition forces, Ash gives a blow-by-blow account of the adrenaline-filled life of a security contractor. From days under mortar bombardment to the huge risks of operating deep within the Iraqi community, this is the real, unsanitised story of the war in Iraq◦– and its aftermath◦– direct from the front line.

James Ashcroft is a former British Infantry Captain who served in West Belfast and Yugoslavia, and trained with various elite US Army and Marine Units. He worked as a private security contractor in Iraq from September 2003 until spring 2005. His second book, Escape from Baghdad , was published by Virgin Books in 2009.

Clifford Thurlow is the co-author of Making A Killing and Escape from Baghdad . He has collaborated on numerous biographies, most recently Today I’m Alice and Fatwa: Living with a Death Threat .

Escape from Baghdad

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Epub ISBN 9780753547748

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Published by Virgin Books 2010

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Copyright © James Ashcroft 2006

James Ashcroft has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the life, experiences and recollections of the author. In some cases names of people, places, dates, sequences or the detail of events have been changed solely to protect the privacy of others. The author has stated to the publishers that, except in such respects not affecting the substantial accuracy of the work, the contents of this book are true.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by

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ISBN 9780753512340