Matt Johnson, a former British Special Forces soldier turned close protection operator, has to make do with a nondescript job in Central America. But his reaction to the deaths of some members of the team he led in Afghanistan leads to him getting booted off the assignment. Johnson gets another opportunity to return to the fold when his old acquaintances reach out to him with a new offer: another security assignment in Iraq. Johno, as his friends call him, accepts the offer. He will soon discover the odds are stacked against him in more ways than he can imagine. There is an adversary with a long memory and a thirst for revenge, no matter the price, in No Safe Ground by D.L. Grace.

No Safe Ground is the first book in D.L. Grace's Operator series. The emphasis on how the ambush unfolded and on Matt's suspicions about who to blame establishes a definitive origin story that explains his convictions and military background, making it easier for readers to identify with his unusual actions as the conspiracy deepens. The author combines a perspective that constantly shifts among the narrative's principal actors with dialogue that is strategic, tense, and laced with double meanings and military terms. The detail-oriented narrative style weaves these elements into a riveting mystery where no one can be trusted, and a chess game that is not what it appears to be. The result is an immersive narrative that will captivate action and thriller genre enthusiasts with an eye for expertly executed spycraft.

D.L. Grace’s No Safe Ground follows Matt “Johno” Johnson, a former British Special Forces soldier working in private security in Afghanistan. After a convoy ambush kills three men and shows evidence that someone inside the operation helped select the target, Johno loses both his contract and the life he knew. Ten months later, a violent encounter with MS-13 forces him out of hiding in Honduras, and an old contact sends him back to the security circuit in Erbil. Johno arrives to protect an oil compound as Daesh advances toward the city and foreign powers compete for influence in the war. When attacks begin landing too close to routes he is responsible for, Johno must work out who is shaping the battlefield before another team is sent into a kill zone.

“Next time someone in Langley or Moscow wants to move pieces, remind them what those pieces look like when we pick them up.” D.L. Grace’s No Safe Ground is a brilliant war thriller, and the author understands exactly how preparation can be the difference between survival and a body count. The combat writing is exceptional. A rehearsed break drill later saving a trapped vehicle column is one of those situations that only a writer who knows what they're doing would know. This stretches to the intelligence work, shown through scenes like the Qaysari teahouse chess games that turn ordinary board positions into hidden operational language. The wider cast has real presence too. Hassan, the Kurdish commander known as the Lion of Erbil, is excellent because his whiteboard keeps the dead visible and remembered when conversations change to victory talks. Even the Citadel lights become a measure of whether or not a city is breathing again. Well written and immersive to the brim, readers who enjoy military thrillers are in for a treat.

A few months after 9/11, a militia training ground in Koh-i-Malik is raided by a foreign force, leaving many militia members dead. Among the dead are the two sons of the Haqqani network council’s elder. The elder is desperate to avenge his sons but knows only the alias of the foreign squad’s leader, ‘al-djinn al-aswad’, the Black Djinn, coined by his men. The council declares a bounty worth millions of dollars for the Black Djinn’s identity and head. More than a decade later, Matt Johnson “Johno”, an ex-British Special Forces operator turned private contractor, narrowly survives a fatal ambush while leading a Private Security Detail (PSD) team in Herat, Afghanistan. He later loses his contract after a confrontation with his ops manager over the attack. He is forced to leave Afghanistan, but learns the Haqqani network was behind the attack. However, he has no idea he is the Black Djinn. When he runs into trouble while lying low in Honduras, he is offered a contract in Erbil, Kurdistan. As he lands in Erbil, he is about to step into a tightly woven web of espionage and strategic warfare involving Americans, Brits, and Russians. Find out how it all goes down in No Safe Ground by D.L. Grace.

If you are looking for an espionage novel flavored with high-octane action, military and terrorist thrills, adventure, and nerve-shredding suspense, No Safe Ground by D.L. Grace is a great pick. Right from the start, Grace immersed me in the world of terrorism and espionage in the Middle East and Central Asia with visceral narration and vivid imagery: from the war-scarred setting of Erbil, the chaotic ambush on Johno’s convoy in Afghanistan, the strategic attacks in Erbil, and the intelligence meetings in Russia and the UK. This book would make an enthralling military movie. Think Sicario, but with more violence, tension, deeper personal conflicts, and an intriguing international spy saga. Grace packs the conversations with military and espionage jargon, giving insight into the dynamics behind the two fields. As I followed the Russians advancing their secret agenda in Kurdistan, communicating through chess and implementing their strategies, while watching the Western powers struggle to maintain their grip on the region, and Johno form unlikely alliances, I was treated to betrayal, sacrifices, and shocking revelations.

No Safe Ground is the first book in the spy thriller Operator Series by D.L. Grace. We meet Matt Johnson, a former Royal Marine with more than two decades of special operations track record. In Pakistan in 2001, Matt leads an SAS raid in the Registan desert that kills two sons of a senior leader of the Haqqani military network. The network sets a three-million-dollar price for his head. When Matt’s placement with a Western private security team in Afghanistan is abruptly terminated, he takes a break in Honduras, only to run into a criminal cartel there. The CIA offers Matt a safe escape route in exchange for a security lead role in Erbil, Iraq. Matt finds himself in a complex spy web of Western, Russian, and Kurdish intelligence. Will he survive this mission?

No Safe Ground was a perfect roller-coaster action thriller spiced by a sophisticated, professionally written intelligence intrigue. I highly appreciated how D.L. Grace transposed his military intelligence experience into this nail-bitingly suspenseful novel. The story felt so realistic that I rooted for Matt and prayed for his survival. The international scale of the Special Forces operations was breathtaking. The rhythmic, succinct writing style kept the momentum and made the book hard to put down. Every tiny detail felt in the right place, from the subtleties of body language to moral compromises. But most of all, I liked the code language of chess games and the allegory of pawn-to-queen promotion. I highly recommend this brilliant novel to spy thriller fans and look forward to the next installment of the Operator Series.

No Safe Ground by D.L. Grace follows Matt “Johno” Johnson, a former British Special Forces operator who now works as a contractor, moving from one job to the next while trying to stay ahead of a long‑standing blood feud and the fallout from an ambush in Afghanistan that still shapes his decisions. His work in Erbil puts him in the middle of a quiet intelligence war he didn’t know existed, where chess games in local tea houses are used to pass instructions for attacks, and where Russian officers, ISIS handlers, and Western agencies all operate with their own agendas. Johno’s attempts to understand the pattern pull him deeper into a conflict that uses contractors as expendable pieces, and his choices in Honduras, Afghanistan, and Kurdistan show how he moves between survival, obligation, and the need to settle old debts.

No Safe Ground by D.L. Grace pulls off something a lot of thrillers try and fail to do: it makes the tradecraft feel real without losing the human cost underneath it. Matt starts burned out and just trying to disappear, but watching him change from someone who's given up on the people running him to someone who starts making his own calls is genuinely satisfying. Magomed goes through an even bigger change, and the way his loyalty erodes as he sees the damage his own side is causing gives the book a lot of its emotional pull. The pacing takes its time early on, letting the paranoia and the grind of the contractor world build before ramping up hard once the pieces start connecting. There's a real sense of dread running through it, the kind that comes from knowing everyone involved is being used as a piece in someone else's game. It's a smart, tense read that will appeal to readers who like their thrillers grounded in the realities of modern conflict rather than glossy action for its own sake.

D.L. Grace’s No Safe Ground is the opening book in The Operator Series, following Ex-SAS soldier Matt “Johno” Johnson, who runs a private security operation in Afghanistan. A Haqqani ambush eliminates three of his men, and furious at the ops manager who went missing during the fight, he is fired. He drifts to Honduras, where he defends an old farmer from MS-13 and is forced to go on the run again. But a handler from his past brings him to Erbil, Kurdistan, to guard the oil staff as ISIS moves closer to the city. He finds out about Operation Cradle, a Russian SVR plot, which uses teahouse chess games to pass kill orders to Daesh cells. What is most disturbing is the bounty on Johno’s head, which has been live since 2001, and both Langley and Moscow treat him as someone expendable. He must choose not to be a pawn and play his own game if he wants to come out alive.

If you want a military thriller with a complex hero, No Safe Ground is the perfect read for you. Written in the first-person narrative voice, it feels intimate. Johno is the protagonist you cannot ignore: intelligent, strong, and lethal. D.L. Grace delivers a smart meld of military action, thrilling suspense, and old-school spy work. The chess device was ingenious, as moves played in a smoky teahouse turn into ambushes in real life, with tense scenes in a world where no one can be trusted. Scenes like Johno and Magomed quietly watching each other across the board build the slow-burn, clever suspense. The action is intense, from close-combat fights to an IED strike; the action is brutal and grounded in believable war tactics. This novel is complex, with fast pacing and confident prose.

No Safe Ground is the first book in the Operator Series by D.L. Grace, and it follows ex-SAS operator Matt “Johno” Johnson, a man haunted by ghosts. He almost strangles the cowardly ops manager who left them hanging after a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan that killed three of his team. Now, he drinks himself through Honduras, gets into a fight with MS-13, and is called back to work by handler Andy Walker. His job is to lead security at K1, an oil compound outside Erbil. ISIS closes in, and soon Johno spots something unusual. In a bazaar teahouse, engineer "Rasi" plays a chess game, designed to represent real attacks. The boards are coded orders for Daesh strikes to destabilize Kurdistan for Moscow's profit. Meanwhile, there is a twelve-year-old bounty on his head that has begun to stir again. Caught between Moscow, Langley, and his own conscience, Johno must stop being a pawn in the game and start being a player.

D.L. Grace's military thriller ticked all the boxes for me. The characters are exceptionally written, and Johno is so memorable. He has been damaged by combat, is weary, but sharp in his wits. The other two characters who held my attention were the proud Kurdish commander Hassan, who holds the line, and the Chechen sniper Magomed, who gives the story heart. No Safe Ground examines the toll of proxy wars. The suspense builds slowly, with a hidden camera in reading glasses, coded boards, and an execution video that delivers a shock no one saw coming. You follow characters who are reading each other, and when the action hits, it hits hard, with an ambush, tanks on the airport run, and a Shilka tearing up a checkpoint. This book is for readers who enjoy military thrillers that pulse with action.

No Safe Ground is the first book in the Operator Series by D.L. Grace. The story follows Matt "Johno" Johnson, a former British Special Forces operator who now works as a close-protection contractor. Still haunted by an ambush in Afghanistan that killed three of his men, he is not sure if he was set up. Chasing a shot at redemption, he takes jobs whenever they come and however dangerous they are. He took on a job to end a cartel in Central America, and powered through a security contract in northern Iraq. However, his new contract in Kurdistan turns out to be anything but simple. Every attack against him is too clean, every enemy always a step ahead, and it becomes clear someone has been out to get him even before he arrived here. As ISIS rises and rival intelligence networks target him, Johno realizes he's not just protecting a client. He is the target of a much bigger, older game, and he has to figure out who he can actually trust before time runs out.

Author D.L. Grace's intense, action-packed, and fast-paced novel had me sitting on the edge of my seat. I finished this in a single sitting and loved every moment. Johno is such an incredible protagonist. He had survivor’s guilt about what happened in Afghanistan. He didn’t allow that guilt to come in between him and the job at hand, but it impacted him severely mentally and his decision-making ability. The level of detail in the world-building is incredible. The politics and the descriptions of Kurdistan feel very real. I loved how there was a sense of danger at all times and that every attack we see is part of something bigger that Johno has to figure out before it is too late. The author writes action with real clarity and tension, which is truly enjoyable. I feel that this series can become a TV series or a movie very easily. No Safe Ground is a must-read for anyone who enjoys action, suspense, and a great plot!

Matt “Johno” Johnson is a former elite British Special Forces operator. The story opens with an ambush in Afghanistan where he loses three of his men. Hiding out in Honduras, he’s accidentally involved in the deaths of two relatives of a drug cartel’s leader. Needing an escape, he takes a position in Erbil, Kurdistan. While it appears to be the lead on a security mission protecting oil executives in a dangerous part of the world, it becomes so much more. What Johno doesn’t know is that he’s on a wanted list and there’s a bounty on his head. The fact that the people who are supposed to protect him also know this is a concern. The Russians are also involved in the area, via a well-thought-out plan of using chess games in teahouses to plan attacks. Meanwhile, there are others in the compound that are performing double duties, and not necessarily for the right side. Can Johno navigate life in Erbil, protect his people, his clients, and himself? When it all goes downhill, who makes it out alive? Find out in No Safe Ground by D.L. Grace.

No Safe Ground is book one in the Operator series and is inspired by true events. This disclaimer makes the plot even scarier as it’s all happening in a political hotbed, and the rest of the world is just watching. While I loved the subplots going on, the Russians using chess to plan attacks is sheer brilliance, and every chess move made me take a deep breath. As you’d expect from a current espionage thriller, there are explosions, gunfights, and lots of destruction. Johno is your modern-day Jason Bourne, and the reader is with him all the way, regardless of some of his decisions. No spoilers, but the outcome of this mission sets up the rest of the series excitingly and unexpectedly—I’m ready for book two. Ex-military personnel or those with a keen interest in this genre will especially love D.L. Grace’s No Safe Ground; the action scenes alone won’t disappoint. For everyone else, there’s an extensive glossary of terms at the end to help keep everyone on the same page.