The Siege: The Remarkable Story of the Greatest SAS Hostage Drama by Ben Macintyre is out now from Penguin Random House SA!

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

On April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Princes Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There they took 26 hostages, including embassy staff, visitors and three British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued as millions gathered around screens across the country to witness the longest news flash in British television history, in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS – hitherto an organisation shrouded in secrecy – laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod.

Drawing on unpublished source material, exclusive interviews with the SAS, and testimony from witnesses including hostages, negotiators, intelligence officers and the on-site psychiatrist, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre takes readers on a gripping journey from the years and weeks of build-up on both sides, to the minute-by-minute account of the siege and rescue.

Recreating the dramatic conversations between negotiators and hostages, the cutting-edge intelligence work happening behind-the-scenes, and the media frenzy around this moment of international significance, The Siege is the remarkable story of what really happened on those fateful six days, and the first full account of a moment that forever changed the way the nation thought about the SAS – and itself.

Categories International Non-fiction

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