Released, 2 May 2017
Unforgiving Destiny follows the true story of the 37-year pursuit by authorities on five continents to imprison and execute David McMillan as he travelled as an independent smuggler. Dogged by an obsessed DEA agent, McMillan was jailed in Australia, and faced the death penalty in Thailand before escaping prison only to be captured again in Pakistan after crossing the Afghan border.
Recovering from every downfall, McMillan rebuilds his life and network from the ashes time and again only to find the same agency faces behind the next arrest. In this private history, readers are taken to the streets of New York City and Colombia, then through the war-zones of Afghanistan and underground cells in Karachi. At the same time, McMillan balances a double life of a London gentleman with the women in his life oblivious to his true nature.
“I’d written Escape in response to a suggestion by the
thriller writer, Stephen Leather, and in a style that kept my own motivations
simple: ruthless trade. The place and time are told through the prison
characters I’d met. Yet, it became clear that readers wanted more. With
Unforgiving Destiny, I took a different approach. It explains why I chose the
dangerous path, and, as best as I can, what the trade of smugglers and the
people involved were actually like over the past thirty years. As well, I’ve
never read any books of the underworld that seem to have real people.”
“I’m not a big fan of biographies. Actors are funny,
adventurers are brave — but neither truthful. And mostly the books are aimless
rivers of stories. With Unforgiving Destiny, I’ve tried to go beyond True-Crime
clichés, especially concerning the women who appear throughout the book.”
