Spies, Lies, and Exile: The Extraordinary Story of Russian Double Agent George Blake

For fans of John le Carr and Ben Macintyre, an exclusive first-person account of one of the Cold War's most notorious spies

Few Cold War capers approach the sheer daring and treachery of the spy George Blake's.

After fighting in the Dutch resistance during World War Two, Blake joined the British spy agency MI6, and was stationed in Seoul. Taken prisoner after the North Korean army overran his post in 1950, Blake later returned to England to a hero's welcome, carrying a dark secret: while in a communist prison camp, he had secretly switched sides to the KGB.

As a Soviet double agent, Blake betrayed uncounted western spying operations--including the storied Berlin Tunnel, the most expensive covert project ever undertaken by the CIA and MI6. Blake exposed hundreds of western agents, forty of whom were likely executed. After his unmasking and arrest, he received, for that time, the longest sentence in modern British history.

Much of Blake's career existed inside the hall of mirrors that was the Cold War, especially following his sensational escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison. Veteran journalist Simon Kuper tracked Blake to his dacha outside Moscow, where the aging spy agreed to be interviewed for this unprecedented account of Cold War espionage. Now that the master spy has died, Kuper finally sets the record straight.