In Praise Of… “The Spy And The Traitor”
A short almost-review of the gripping book by Ben MacIntyre detailing the story of Cold War double agent Oleg Gordievsky.
An Introduction
I used to read a lot of books, but primarily due for to hours staring at a computer screen as a part of my day to day life, my eyes started getting very tired indeed so I switched, eventually, primarily to audio books just a few short years ago.
What I like most about audio books are when you get a wonderful story paired with an engrossing narrator — somehow this just brings the story to life.
Aside: A wonderful example of such are the novels of John le Carré when narrated by Michael Jayston.
I mention le Carré as I do like to read about espionage, fact and fiction, and when the opportunity arises the work of the intelligence services and spycraft in general during the era of the Cold War.
There’s just something fascinating about the whole thing, and I was fortunate enough to grow up in its latter decades.
I say fortunate not light-heartedly, as it was a brutal time in many regards, but the demarcation lines were drawn clearly, both metaphorically and literally.
As I’ve written about previously, I believe that things were a lot simpler then — we knew who…
