RaveThe Spectator (UK)Finally – an authoritative, stimulating history of the modern Middle East ... Exhilarating and accomplished ... The extent of The Cauldron’s narrative is vast ... Montefiore also has an eye for telling details and quotes ... Amid the current tsunami of overheated commentary on the Middle East, this reasonable and genuine effort to present a careful, fact-based and sensitive account of such contentious topics is very valuable indeed and deserves to be widely read.
Snigdha Poonam
PositiveThe Guardian[A] perceptive, useful book on an important topic … Poonam is clear-eyed on the challenges the youth of the Indian population present … These young people are hitting adulthood with the cultural values of their grandparents―socially conservative, sexually timid, God-fearing―but the life goals of American teenagers: money and fame, Poonam points out. They are the most global young Indians ever, but with the narrowest ideas of what it means to be Indian.
Aimen Dean
RaveThe Guardian...an extraordinary story ... It is unprecedented that any such individual publishes a detailed memoir of more than a decade of his activity at very nearly the highest possible levels of Islamist militancy ... Aimen Dean – not, inevitably, his real name – tells the story well. He has been ably assisted by Paul Cruickshank, a US-based researcher and journalist who has both a deep knowledge of the subject and the ability to transform the raw material of an agent’s memories into something digestible to the general public ... Nine Lives works on many levels: as a human story of faith, violence, trauma and eventually a form of redemption, a deep dive into the inner workings of one of the most infamous terrorist organisations of all time and as a short history of the threat that we still face ... a fascinating glimpse into the reality of spying.
