Unforgiving Destiny: The Relentless Pursuit of a Black Marketeer, Paperback

Unforgiving Destiny follows the true story of the 39-year pursuit by authorities on five continents to imprison and execute David McMillan as he travelled as an independent smuggler. Readers have called this sprawling yet fast-paced saga, "The benchmark for true-crime writing," and includes new details of the notorious Bangkok escape. Dogged by an obsessed DEA agent, he evades the death penalty in Thailand by escaping prison, only to be 'disappeared' in Pakistan jails after crossing the Afghan border. After every downfall, McMillan rebuilds his life and network only to find the same agency people arranging capture by any means. In this private history, readers are taken to the streets of New York City and Colombia, then through the war-zones of Afghanistan and torture cells in Karachi. At the same time, McMillan balances a double life of a London gentleman with the women in his life oblivious to his true nature. Look to the author's page to hear readings, video, background, film links and see the faces behind this extraordinary journey. In one reviewer's words, "Unforgiving Destiny is a mini-masterpiece. Outstanding.""Imagine losing everything you care about. Home, family, freedom, every object that built your life," writes McMillan. "Then locked in some of the world's worst prisons. Even if you survive, there are little deaths feeding on your guts - when that repeats five times over thirty years, those little deaths drain your soul." Unforgiving Destiny - the Relentless Pursuit of a Black Marketeer reveals the ultimate cost of survival in the darkest of dark worlds. Unforgiving Destiny includes an integrated chapter on the Bangkok-prison breakout and answers many of the questions raised by the over 100,000 readers of 'Escape: The True Story of the Only Westerner Ever to Break Out of Thailand's Bangkok Hilton'. This new and most personal biography reveals the fears, ambitions and motivations of a man both driven and pursued, surviving the unthinkable, and the effects upon those he loves. McMillan is the last survivor of the small band of independent smugglers, and as such has now told much that could not have been told before. Only in 2016 was he free to speak, after the Thai government abandoned all attempts to extradite him to again face a death penalty. Few other lives have been so extraordinary or more clearly told.Renowned thriller writer Stephen Leather, after reading Escape, wrote: 'David makes no excuses for his life as a professional drug smuggler and asks for no sympathy. While most of David's fellow prisoners gave up hope and accepted their fate, he decided from Day One that he had no alternative other than to do what no other Westerner had ever managed - to escape David is a great writer...' Unforgiving Destiny raises the standard for fast-paced autobiographies of extraordinary people, written in a style that is heart-rending yet often humorous as McMillan sets ego aside and invites readers into his hidden domain.

Born in London in 1956, David McMillan was a film technician and drug-law-reform activist before a career crossing borders with contraband as a black-marketeer. Charged following a drug-conspiracy and helicopter-breakout plan, he was later released and pursued to Thailand, imprisoned again and escaped alone. 'Escape', his book of the jailbreak, has sold over 100,000 copies. For the next twenty years, McMillan changed identities and evaded Interpol alerts until an extradition request from Thailand reached the UK courts. He narrowly avoided return, and was freed in 2016.