The Siege
The Remarkable Story of the Greatest SAS Hostage Drama
Published on 8. May 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-1-4059-6174-5 (ISBN)
Description
'Unforgettable' Independent
'Fresh and gripping' Telegraph
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
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Drawing on unpublished source material, exclusive interviews with the SAS, and testimony from witnesses including hostages, negotiators, intelligence officers and the on-site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.
'The pre-eminent historian of the secret world . . . His books have set the gold standard for accurate historical reporting, but read like heart-pounding thrillers' Mick Herron
'Macintyre does true-life espionage better than anyone else' John Preston
BEN MACINTYRE'S NEXT BOOK, REDWOOD, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW
'Fresh and gripping' Telegraph
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
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.
'The pre-eminent historian of the secret world . . . His books have set the gold standard for accurate historical reporting, but read like heart-pounding thrillers' Mick Herron
'Macintyre does true-life espionage better than anyone else' John Preston
BEN MACINTYRE'S NEXT BOOK, REDWOOD, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW
Reviews / Votes
Ben Macintyre has established himself as the pre-eminent 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 * Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating storylines in history -- David Grann * author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon * Macintyre writes with the diligence and insight of a journalist, and the panache of a born storyteller. -- John Banville * The Guardian * The definitive account of what happened . . . so gripping that I literally could not put the book down. -- Jack Straw * Independent * Unforgettable -- Robert McCrum * Independent * A fresh and gripping read . . . A masterful big-picture narrative, drawing on interviews, news archives and unpublished personal memoirs by those who survived. Macintyre preserves the hostages' story in magnificent, humane style - and offers another swashbuckling tribute to their rescuers -- Colin Freeman * Telegraph * There have been plenty of books written in the aftermath and intervening years, most claiming to be the "true story", but none as exhaustive or gripping as Ben Macintyre's The Siege * Observer * In The Siege Macintyre has access to SAS sources including, in one of his customary coups, Major Hector Gullan, who planned the raid. Yet he gives greater room to the feelings of the hostages, the shifting emotions of their captors and the interplay between the two groups. Macintyre's achievement is that his account is the more gripping for it. * Sunday Times * Gripping...a cracking procedural...it's another hit for [Macintyre]...a remarkably immersive account of what happened...Macintyre's superb reconstruction restores it to vivid, complex life * Washington Post * A master storyteller...Macintyre adds real value to our understanding of what occurred in those six days with his deeply humane book. He is particularly compelling in the portraits he puts together of the dramatis personae * Wall Street Journal *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 133 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
327 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4059-6174-5 (9781405961745)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2024
Penguin Books Ltd
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Ben Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Colditz, Agent Sonya, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. Several of his books have been made into films and television series, including Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends and SAS: Rogue Heroes.