Prize-Winning Peeler Penmanship
Last updated: 03/10/2006 - 11:14
Two former undercover police officers - who are now in hiding - have been nominated for one of the UK's biggest crime writing awards.
The Infiltrators: The First Inside Account of Life Deep Undercover with Scotland Yard's Most Secret Unit - by Philip Etienne, Martin Maynard with Tony Thompson
"Heart-stopping...a gripping, high-octane read." - The Daily Mail.
Philip Etienne and Martin Maynard, undercover officers now in hiding for their own protection, were part of a police 'sting' operation which went wrong and left their identities exposed in a resulting court case.
They have won the Macallan Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and the Crime Writers Association Gold Prize for Non-Fiction for their book, The Infiltrators - The First Inside Account of Life Deep Undercover with Scotland Yard's Most Secret Unit. The book is their account of life in what is - arguably - Scotland Yard's most covert unit: SO10 (formerly known as the 'crime operations group').
Etienne and Maynard's story was written with crime journalist Tony Thompson and tells the tale of their six years working undercover as drug-dealing intermediaries, buyers of forged credit cards and hired assassins. The operation went wrong in a bungled set-up and both men were shot and left for dead.
Available in hardback for several years this volume is now out in a 400 page paperback edition (as of January 2005). The Daggers are awarded for fiction, non-fiction and short stories and past winners have included writers of the calibre of Ian Rankin.
The Infiltrators: The First Inside Account of Life Deep Undercover with Scotland Yard's Most Secret Unit is out now, from Penguin Books Ltd.
More information available in Books, Professional Groups