Deep Cover: How I took down Britain’s most dangerous gangsters

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All the while, Doyle was working out doggedly and training himself to become an expert on criminal commodities, learning the going rate for everything from a kilo of cocaine to a MAC-10 machine gun.

Soon he was headhunted by GMP's specialist undercover unit and tasked with infiltrating the city's underworld. All of his old life was removed and he was given a new identity - that of Belfast-raised 'grafter' and armed robber Mikey O'Brien. An excellent book. A well written story of an undercover cop diving deep into the underbelly of society to root out the dangerous criminals that threaten the fabric of society. A cliche I know, but I couldn’t put this book down and read it in a couple of days, mainly because the story really resonated with me. His description of how the pitiful upper ranks in the Police treat the the genuine hard working foot soldiers with arrogance and contempt are bang on. Most senior officers are inept, egotistical, useless pen pushers interested in only one thing…….promotion, power and money. It’s a boys club where people shoved up through the ranks engage in daily, cringeworthy ass kissing and creeping to further their power with scant regard to the cops out on the streets doing a really difficult job day in day out, taking years off their lifespans because of the shift work and stress they deal with. My calm facade belied the rage erupting inside. For 42 days he'd been at large, 42 days that ended in an act of unimaginable horror. I can still see his face. It still haunts me."

The final part of Doyle's book tells of the ramifications of the stresses and things he saw as a policeman and his struggles with his mental health are as "edge of the seat" as his adventures in the force To add credibility to his cover story, he worked alongside Nikki, a fellow Level 1 covert operator who dressed up in Gucci and posed as his girlfriend.

Shay's police career spanned 17 years, and he was one of the UK's chosen few Level 1 undercover operatives. There seems to be a drive for academics to join the police, it’s taking people out like me who’ve got abilities is a mistake. It’s a class thing, not every young person will have access to higher education.The soldier-turned-undercover policeman risked his life to infiltrate south Manchester's gangland. He was also on the frontline of some of the most high profile police operations in Greater Manchester history, including the Stepping Hill poisonings and the hunt for double cop killer Dale Cregan. As someone so utilised, he was used against some major criminals, though most of his assignments seem to have been against wider criminal fraternities. So, for example, he worked undercover in the Moss Side in Manchester, building a picture of the criminal landscape there, and again later in Cambridge. What he never seems to have done is been deployed against a major criminal or crime family, such as the Adams crime family in London, or the Noonan crime family in Manchester. So, he never seems to have been deployed to infiltrate such an OCG and “bring them down”. This isn’t a criticism of Shay, or even the police. As a layperson, I don’t know. Perhaps that’s not how it’s done, or such an operation would be too risky. An explosive first-hand account of Level 1 undercover police work, from the cop who infiltrated and dismantled some of the UK's toughest gangs and high-profile gangsters, including Salford's 'Mr Big' and cop killer Dale Cregan. For fans of Running with the Firm, Good Cop Bad War and Soldier Spy After a stellar career undercover Doyle moves on to finish his police career after adding several major ,and dangerous,investigations to his CV. Shay now works with organisations to break the stigmas around mental health, particularly in the emergency services.

Based on intelligence he’d gathered, police arrested four gangland figures and found a fully loaded MAC-10-style machine gun and a couple of kilos of skunk in a car. But pretending to be a gangster played havoc with Doyle's home life. In 2009 the convictions of Colin Joyce and Lee Amos marked a turning point in the fight against gun violence in inner south Manchester I put myself up for the risky stuff because I felt I could do it and I felt I should. The police get such a bashing, but we don't hear about the every day, when a child is saved, or a vulnerable person is protected." Lee Amos was put away for 35 years for a catalogue of crimes - including murder (Image: PA) Read More Related ArticlesThe suspected gumnan was one-eyed drug dealer Dale Cregan. He fled to Thailand, but was arrested at Manchester Airport on his return. Armed police pictured during the search for Dale Cregan But the 17 years he spent in his covert career took a terrible toll on his personal life and mental health, sparking a catastrophic breakdown. Now, in an explosive memoir, Doyle (not his real name) has told how he went from a council estate kid to become one of the UK's elite undercover cops.