High Risk: A True Story of the SAS, Drugs and Other Bad Behaviour w/ Ben Timberlake

Join authors Ben Timberlake and Antony Loyd as they share their uncompromising personal accounts of embracing fear and choosing to live life at the very extreme, revealing what happens when you’re taken over the edge.

How does it feel when your mind and body is pushed to the limit? In High Risk, former Special Forces soldier Ben Timberlake charts his extraordinary life: pursuing the rush, he takes us from combat in Iraq to encounters with a 9/11 hijacker, to battling a heroin habit on a remote island. Former infantry officer and Times correspondent Antony Loyd fled depression and drug addiction at home to the front lines of Bosnia, witnessing barbaric chaos in what was Europe’s bloodiest conflict since the Second World War. Together, they share their uncompromising personal accounts of embracing fear and choosing to live life at the very extreme, revealing what happens when you’re taken over the edge.

About High Risk

This is a dark, raw and uncompromising tale of the human condition in extremis, drawing on the many lives of Ben Timberlake: as an archaeologist, Special Forces soldier, combat medic and drug addict.

Starting with Ben’s first near-death experience—in a Nazi-themed bar in wartime Yugoslavia—High Risk is a whirlwind tour of everything from service in the SAS, combat in Iraq, and encounters with a gambling-obsessed 9/11 hijacker, to veterans blissed out on MDMA, hook-ups in the world of extreme sex, and battling a heroin habit on a remote Scottish island.

Ben pursued the rush, and the chase often took him over the edge. Instead of asking why, he asked, why not? Blending confessional narrative, classic reportage and acerbic humour, this memoir takes a gonzo look at terrorists, junkies, soldiers and strippers, through the tale of one extraordinary life.

About Ben Timberlake

Ben Timberlake is a security consultant and medic in high-risk areas, specialising in Iraq and Syria. In a previous life his undercover missions concerned nuclear terrorism, the Far Right, and the trafficking of people, wildlife, looted antiquities and organs. He has written for the Financial Times, The Guardian and The Economist, and made Channel 4 and Discovery films on topics from Japanese mummies to prehistoric rock art.

£12 *plus booking fee