The Siege - by Ben MacIntyre

About the Book

"As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath. ... As police negotiators pressed the gunmen, rival protestors clashed violently outside the embassy, and as MI6 and the CIA scrambled for intelligence, Britain's special forces strike team, the SAS, laid plans for a dangerous rescue mission. Inside, [the] hostages used all the cunning they possessed to outwit and outflank their captors. Finally, on the sixth day, after the terrorists executed the embassy press attachâe and dumped his body on the front doorstep, the SAS raid began, sparking a dedly high-stakes climax. A story of ordinary men and women under immense pressure, The Siege takes readers minute-by-thrilling-minute through an event that would echo across the next two decades and provide a direct historical link to the tragedy on 9/11"--

Book Synopsis

"For six days, it was the Iranian Embassy on Princes Gate in London that riveted the world. . . . Macintyre's superb reconstruction restores it to vivid, complex life."--The Washington Post

A thrilling tick-tock recounting one of the most harrowing hostage situations and daring rescue attempts of our time--from the true-life espionage master and New York Times bestselling author of Operation Mincemeat and The Spy and the Traitor.

"[Ben Macintyre is] John le Carré's nonfiction counterpart."--The New York Times

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Minnesota Star Tribune, Parade

As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath.

Policeman Trevor Lock was supposed to have gone to the theater that night. Instead, he found himself overpowered and whisked into the embassy. The terrorists never noticed the gun hidden in his jacket. The drama that ensued would force him to find reserves of courage he didn't know he had. The gunmen themselves were hardly one-dimensional--all Arabs, some highly educated, who hoped to force Britain to take their side in their independence battle against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Behind the scenes lurked the brutal Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who had bankrolled the whole affair as a salvo against Iran.

As police negotiators pressed the gunmen, rival protestors clashed violently outside the embassy, and as MI6 and the CIA scrambled for intelligence, Britain's special forces strike team, the SAS, laid plans for a dangerous rescue mission. Inside, Lock and his fellow hostages used all the cunning they possessed to outwit and outflank their captors. Finally, on the sixth day, after the terrorists executed the embassy press attaché and dumped his body on the front doorstep, the SAS raid began, sparking a deadly high-stakes climax.

A story of ordinary men and women under immense pressure, The Siege takes readers minute-by-thrilling-minute through an event that would echo across the next two decades and provide a direct historical link to the tragedy on 9/11. Drawing on exclusive interviews and a wealth of never-before-seen files, Macintyre brilliantly reconstructs a week in which every day minted a new hero and every second spelled the potential for doom.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Siege

"The Siege [is a] masterly account of the weeklong [Iranian hostage] ordeal. . . . It has never been recounted so pleasurably as it has been here. As with all of Macintyre's books, The Siege is threaded with complex side characters and sharp subplots."--Azadeh Moaveni, The New York Times

"For six days, it was the Iranian Embassy on Princes Gate in London that riveted the world . . . Macintyre's new book is a gripping retelling of what happened. [His] superb reconstruction restores it to vivid, complex life . . . A cracking procedural. It's another hit."--The Washington Post

"Macintyre . . . is a master storyteller. . . . He is expert at gathering and collating, then shaping and deploying, vast quantities of information, whether from government records, private archives or interviews he conducts himself. . . . There are numerous accounts already published of this six-day siege[, ] and yet, for all the wealth of information already out there, Mr. Macintyre adds real value to our understanding of what occurred in those six days with his deeply humane and encyclopedic book."--Wall Street Journal

"Nerve-wracking menace, unlikely sympathies, and a daring rescue mark this rousing saga of a notorious terrorist incident . . . Macintyre's narrative is cinematic in its bloody climax . . . and even more so in its tense buildup. He paints the embassy occupation as a psychological pressure cooke. . . . Without demonizing those involved, Macintyre provides a nuanced, perceptive analysis of the intense emotions roiling a high-stakes standoff."--Publishers Weekly

"Ben Macintyre has established himself as the preeminent historian of the secret world, his work opening doors most of us didn't know were there. His books have set the gold standard for accurate historical reporting, but read like heart-pounding thrillers."--Mick Herron, bestselling author of Slow Horses

"McIntyre makes a good case in closing for considering the hostage crisis the opening shots of the eight-year Iraq-Iran War, an appalling bloodletting in which more than a million soldiers died. A capable work of true-crime writing that connects many subsequent geopolitical dots."―Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Ben Macintyre

"John le Carré's nonfiction counterpart."--The New York Times

"Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating story lines in history."--David Grann

"One of the most gifted espionage writers around."--Annie Jacobsen

"Macintyre is a supremely gifted storyteller. . . . His books are absurdly entertaining."--The Boston Globe

"[Ben] Macintyre at once exalts and subverts the myths of spy craft."--The New Yorker

"Macintyre is fastidious about tradecraft details. . . . [He] has become the preeminent popular chronicler of British intelligence history because he understands the essence of the business."--David Ignatius, The Washington Post

About the Author

Ben Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (UK) and the bestselling author of Agent Sonya, The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, Rogue Heroes, and Prisoners of the Castle, among other books. Macintyre has also written and presented BBC documentaries of his work.