The Spy and the Traitor — Ben Macintyre

Macintyre's account of Oleg Gordievsky — the KGB officer who spied for MI6 for over a decade and was eventually exfiltrated from Moscow in the boot of a car in 1985 — is both a meticulous intelligence history and a study of what it means to live inside a permanent secret. The book is based on extensive access to Gordievsky himself and to British intelligence records, and places the operation within the broader context of the Cold War's final decade. The relationship between the spy and his case officers is one of the most extraordinary in the history of intelligence, and Macintyre tells it with the control of a master storyteller.

Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize. 'The best true spy story I have ever read.' — John le Carré. 'Macintyre at his finest — this is history writing that reads like the best thriller.' — The Times