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4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
tense
medium-paced
funny
informative
sad
tense
informative
medium-paced
dark
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
tense
medium-paced
funny
informative
tense
medium-paced
I read and loved A Spy Among Friends, about Kim Philby. And many people I know read and loved The Spy and the Traitor. So I was excited for this new book about a hostage crisis I didn't know much about. But I ended up being pretty disappointed. This book is very readable and, at times, funny. It was obviously well researched. But Ben Macintyre's conspicuous admiration for the SAS came across as corny and immature. Meanwhile, he was weirdly fixated on describing "the women," (who he routinely referred to as a faceless group), as weeping/sobbing/menstruating heavily, etc. The point was so belabored that I had trouble telling if it was just bad editing or covert sexism. He uncritically documented the creepy comments from Karkouti about their physical appearance, and then utterly gushed over the stoic British heroism of Lock and, pretty much any male in a uniform. Any British male, I should say. He also didn't seem particularly interested in exploring the complex inner lives of the Iranian hostages, who he also frequently referred to as merely "the Iranian hostages." Some of that might be due to a dearth of available research, but that's where the lack of critical engagement with the events comes in. The book left a bad taste in my mouth.
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
This is my fifth Ben Macintyre book. Macintyre is known for penning narrative nonfiction stories primarily about WW2, his most famous probably being about Kim Philby. This is his first book I have read that goes afield of WW2, focusing on the Iraqi funded terrorist takeover of the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980. I never had heard of this specific hostage takeover having happened before I was born but not historic enough to be taught in school; I, therefore, found the background motivation of the terrorists to be educational and interesting. Unfortunately, this is just one of those books, in which there is not enough there to merit a whole book. The hostage situation took place over six days, mostly with nothing happening in those six days. So, Macintyre fills the pages with repetitious dialogue by the terrorists and police, interspersing the narrative with tangents about the SAS, Northern Ireland, etc. While Macintyre still maintains his stylistic prose, the book just left me bored for long portions, not being interested in Salim or whomever crying about Arabistan for the 50th time. I also found the climax, the SAS storming the embassy, to be a letdown. The action was so confusing that not even Macintyre could make it sensible in narrative form, leaving me confused as to what actually happened. I’d recommend skipping this one and reading Agent Sonya or The Spy and the Traitor. 2.5 stars.
informative
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
informative
tense
medium-paced