{"id":2229496,"date":"2026-10-30T06:02:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T03:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2229496"},"modified":"2026-10-30T06:02:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T03:02:57","slug":"oxford-born-writers-unknown-spy-thriller-shortlisted-for-waterstones-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2229496","title":{"rendered":"Oxford-born writer’s ‘unknown’ spy thriller shortlisted for Waterstones award"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/7db9\/live\/76461170-d3b9-11f1-8c27-87a7c72809db.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"PRPR Handout<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Author and historian Ben Macintyre said he “had not realised just how important Redwood was” before writing his book<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A best-selling author has described the spy in his latest book as “unlike any I have come across before”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Oxford-born multimillion-selling writer and historian Ben Macintyre says he used never-before-seen material to craft the Cold War thriller Redwood – the “unknown spy” whose work “possibly averted nuclear Armageddon”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It has made the 2026 Waterstones shortlist for Book of the Year, which highlights the books that booksellers have most enjoyed recommending to readers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Even though Macintyre has written extensively about espionage, including bestseller Operation Mincemeat, he says he “had not realised just how important Redwood was” before writing the book.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"ElenaElena Alexandrovna<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The author says Redwood’s personal trauma “changed the world in very, very significant ways”<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“Redwood was a Russian intelligence officer based in Iran who went over to the other side and he agreed to spy for Britain for MI6,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The man behind the codename is Vladimir Kuzichkin, who Macintyre says had a “very private problem”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The author said it was a sexual secret, which if revealed, would have turned his life upside-down, so in his desperation, the agent saw the only solution in the MI6, in return for the KGB’s secrets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It has been completely covered up – that one person’s personal trauma that changed the world in very, very significant ways.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“He revealed the existence of a plot on the part of the Soviet Union to take over Iran to initially have the Communist Party mount a coup backed by the KGB and then to have the Red Army move in to support it,” the author added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“If that had happened then the US would undoubtedly have responded with nuclear weapons because they didn’t have enough weapons and enough troops in theatre to deal with it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But he says that also reinforced the Iranian regime, making it also “partly a story about unintended consequences”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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American author John Grisham says that given the current war in Iran, Macintyre’s latest book “is certainly his most timely”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Macintyre agrees the story has “very strong modern resonances”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Some of my main characters in this book were killed in the first Israeli air strike last February – the situation that we face in the Middle East would be very different without this unknown double agent at the centre of it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GalinaGalina Kokosova Archives<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Macintyre says Kuzichkin’s wife, Galina Kokosova, is “the key to this story” – the couple is pictured at the National Botanical Gardens in Tehran in 1977<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Macintyre says he grew up “in a house in north Oxford that was suffused with history”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I went to Cambridge, as did my siblings – Cambridge is also a nest of spies, in fact probably more so than Oxford.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He says in the spy world truth is “always” stranger than fiction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Particularly with this story because it is so unlikely and his motivation for doing what he did is so different from any other spy I’ve ever come across. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“This is one of those cases that if you wrote it up as a novel, no one would believe you.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Macintyre says it is “a delight” to see his book shortlisted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The winner will be announced on 26 November.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cq23d9mj05rko”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/7db9\/live\/76461170-d3b9-11f1-8c27-87a7c72809db.jpg”] PR Handout Author and historian Ben Macintyre said he “had not realised just how important Redwood was” before writing his book A best-selling author has described the spy in his latest book as “unlike any I have come across before”. Oxford-born multimillion-selling writer and historian Ben Macintyre says he used never-before-seen material […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2229496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2229496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2229496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2229496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2229496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}