Twenty true stories of covert military operations, from raids into Laos by elite unit MAC-V-SOG to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War to the US Navy SEAL 6 operation Neptune's Spear in Abbottabad which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.

Lewis shines a light on the ''shadow war'' units that conduct clandestine operations and tells in full and fascinating detail the most daring missions of the last fifty years, from the the Sayeret Mat''Kal/Mossad ''Wrath of God'' mission to assassinate those behind the Munich Olympic massacre of Olympic athletes to the Delta Force mission in Somalia using Black Hawk helicopters which went so tragically wrong.