Writers Bloc Presents Ben Macintyre and David Kipen – Los Angeles, CA

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Ben Macintyre’s most thrilling books feature once unremarkable men and women who, when called upon, perform the most remarkable acts and become accidental heroes. They’re not characters in novels. They’re participants in some of the strangest and wildest wartime and post-wartime escapades one can imagine. They’re paper pushers, soldiers, prisoners, spies, clerks, secretaries, aristocrats, commoners. And under Ben Macintyre’s gaze, they consistently defy expectation, notwithstanding one life threatening and hair-raising state of affairs after another.

In his new book, The Siege, Macintyre takes us out of his familiar WWII and Cold War territory, and moves us forward to the 1980 siege of the Iranian Embassy in London by Arab terrorists, several of whom were highly educated. Their goal: to force Britain to take their side against the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. They were holding 26 hostages. British and American intelligence forces, no strangers to hostage crises, feared a bloodbath. Here comes the Ben Macintyre hook that never lets us go: a London policeman, headed for a nice night out at the theatre, never makes it to the theatre: instead, he is overpowered by the gunmen and ends up in the embassy, a hostage. The terrorists missed three things: one, these hostages were smart and hellbent on outwitting their captors; two, the cop had a gun, hidden in his coat pocket; and three, they didn’t count on the strike team that would run headfirst into the fray.

The Siege, a real life thriller of hostages vs terrorists, is a story about survival under extreme pressure, and avoiding almost certain execution and carnage. Nonfiction spy literature just doesn’t get any better than Ben Macintyre. You can’t make this stuff up.

In conversation with David Kipen. L.A. Times critic at large, David has worked as the San Francisco Chronicle’s book editor/critic, as Director of Literature at the NEA and, since 2010, as founder-director of the storefront nonprofit Libros Schmibros Lending Library in Boyle Heights. His books include Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters (Modern Library), its new sequel, Dear California: The Golden State in Diaries and Letters, and Los Angeles in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City of Angels. He has read every last John le Carré novel, which makes him an expert on all things Ben Macintyre, and has finally just completed his first California-set historical spy thriller, The Anniversarist.

No refunds on tickets or books. Books must be picked up on the night of the program.

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