Read: The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre ★★★★ 📚

On the morning of 4 July, a dishevelled couple in tattered clothes could be seen lounging aimlessly at the end of Victoria Road, Coulsdon, in the South London suburbs. One was Simon Brown, of P5, MI6's head of Soviet bloc operations; the other was Veronica Price, the architect of Gordievsky's escape plan. A Home Counties creature from her pearls to her twinset, Price was not suited to this sort of subterfuge. 'I've borrowed the char's hat,' she announced, as they climbed into their disguises.

I've not read much spy fiction but this true story of a KGB man who betrayed Russia & helped cool Cold War tensions only to be first caught & then escape from the USSR to Britain was quite a trip.