Freefall - Tom Read

FREEFALL is the story of a SAS member's journey into madness and his attempts to find his way out again. A former member of the British Parachute Regiment, Tom Read was preparing to freefall from more than 23 miles above the earth to become the first man to punch a hole through the sound barrier unassisted. It didn't work out that way. From his hospital bed in a French sanatorium, he began to review his life in an attempt to trace the roots of his madness: the tough childhood, moving from place to place; joining the Parachute Regiment at seventeen and confronting riots, IRA snipers and booby-traps; doing more than1,000 jumps with the Red Devils and the first ever Parachute drop onto the Falklands; and the high-altitude work that may have created a chemical imbalance in his brain. Weaving backwards and forwards between a haunting present and a remarkable past FREEFALL is an unrelentingly suspenseful account of an amazing life.