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  • Published: 9 June 2026
  • ISBN: 9781787635500
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $38.00

Ballistic




With the action powering its way from the frozen wastes of the Russian Arctic to the turgid, claustrophobic forests of the Caribbean, Ballistic is the explosive, nerve-shreddingly exciting and alarmingly prescient new international thriller from BBC security correspondent and Sunday Times bestselling author Frank Gardner

In the dying light of an Arctic afternoon a vast black shape slips beneath the waters of Murmansk bay, her full complement of crew on board. But the Russian nuclear-powered submarine the Novorussiya is carrying something else - something so diabolically destructive that not all the crew are aware of this cargo.

Kilometres to the south, at a military base hidden in the frozen forests of Arctic Russia, a lone figure steps out into a blast of windblown snow. Unseen, Major Orlov makes his way to a distant corner of the base and retrieves a hidden transmitter. He knows all about the Novorussiya and what she’s carrying and he needs to alert his handlers in London. But Orlov also knows that the net of suspicion is closing in on him and he wants out. Fast.
When Orlov’s extraction across the border into Finland goes disastrously wrong MI6 assign Luke Carlton to team up with the formidable Finnish Special Forces officer Sini Järvinen to spearhead the quest to find out exactly what the Russian double-agent knew so the West can prepare. Their mission takes them across the border by night-time parachute drop, to the very edge of the Kola Peninsula, home to Russia’s ballistic missile fleet, then on to the tropical island of Tobago and a vine-clad villa where a terrible truth is revealed.
As tensions between the West and Russia reach fever pitch, can Luke Carlton and his Finnish accomplice discover the secrets of Moscow’s latest weapon before it’s too late?

  • Published: 9 June 2026
  • ISBN: 9781787635500
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $38.00

About the author

Frank Gardner

Born in 1961, Frank Gardner is the BBC's Security Correspondent, reporting for television and radio on issues of domestic and international security, notably on Islamist extremist related terrorism. A fluent Arabist, with a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies, he was previously the BBC's Middle East Correspondent based in Cairo, and before that in Dubai. In June 2004, while reporting in Riyadh, Frank and his cameraman, Simon Cumbers, were ambushed by Islamist gunmen. Simon was killed outright, Frank was shot multiple times and left for dead. Against all expectations, he survived and, in 2006, published his acclaimed and bestselling memoir, Blood and Sand. In 2009 he published Far Horizons, a much praised account of his life as an inveterate traveller and explorer. His first novel, the thriller Crisis, was a No.1 bestseller. Awarded an OBE for services to journalism, Frank has also written for the Economist, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph and Time Out and has been published in The Best of Sunday Times Travel Writing.
He lives in London with his family.

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Praise for Ballistic

Tensions rise to boiling point . . . Gardner cuts to the molten core of a modern flashpoint in an electric thriller.

THE SUN (on Invasion) 

Everything is impressive in this masterly account . . . exhilarating (if alarming) topicality.

SUNDAY TIMES (on Invasion)

A genuinely unnerving and fast-paced race-against-time thriller . . . its potent combination of Tom Clancy-style hi-tech military and naval manoeuvring and a John Le Carre-like espionage thriller rings all too true . . . highly recommended.

IRISH INDEPENDENT (on Invasion)

Fast, taut, tense, accurate. A terrific read.

FREDERICK FORSYTH (on Crisis)

Gardner skilfully mixes knowledge garnered as the BBC’s security correspondent with breathless action.

THE TIMES (on Ultimatum)