RaveThe Evening Standard (UK)One of the — many — things that makes this book so riveting is the extraordinary blend of precision planning and amateur dramatics in MI6’s escape plan. Gordievsky knew that the British had spotted his signal when a man coming towards him bit very conspicuously into a Mars Bar ... As he has often proved before, Macintyre does true-life espionage better than anyone else. He has a remarkable ability to construct a narrative that is as taut and urgent as it is carefully nuanced. Here the pace never slackens and the focus never drifts, while Macintyre’s insight into his subject’s tangle of contradictions never loses its sharpness. It’s a tough call, but The Spy and the Traitor may well be his best book yet.
