In The Spy and the Traitor Ben Macintyre reveals a tale of betrayal, duplicity and raw courage that changed the course of the Cold War forever. So began one of the boldest and most extraordinary episodes in the history of espionage. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine.

The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Americans -era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELER - The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War. Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2018Ī thrilling Cold War story about a KGB double agent, by one of Britain's greatest historians This Description may be from another edition of this product. Shortlisted for the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize 2019 The Spy and the Traitor, by Ben Macintyre, published in 2018, is the definitive, highly informative, non-fictional account of the defection of a senior-level. Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction Award 2019

The spy and the traitor paperback