Book Review of
The Siege

Lynn's Review

The Siege by Ben Macintyre is a nonfiction crime book published in 2024.

The Siege covers the six-day hostage crisis in 1980 at the Iranian embassy in London. A group of six armed Arab gunmen took twenty-six people hostage to win support for their goal of independence from Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. 

This book covers the six days of the hostage, plus the events that led up to the hostage situation and a brief aftermath and update on the gunmen and the survivors. 

Like other Ben Macintyre books, this one is well researched and well-written. However, the first half of the book was slower than other Ben Macintyre books I have read. It had so many details that it was a slow read for me. This slowed down my nonfiction reading for February and March. It took me almost two months to finish this one, which is rare for me. 

The second half of the book was much better, and the writing picked up. The last few chapters of the book were impossible to put down because I wanted to find out what happened to the hostages. 

I am glad I read this book, though, because it was about an important event that I didn’t know about. It changed the way live news coverage was broadcast and how people viewed Margaret Thatcher in her early days as Prime Minister. 

I did like this book enough to recommend it to my husband, so it wasn’t that I didn’t like it, it was just a slower read for me. 

If you want to try a Ben Macintrye book, I suggest starting with The Spy and the Traitor, about Russia, Britain, and the U.S. during the Cold War.