What a pleasure it was to host Ben Macintyre in Kelso where he talked about his fascinating new book, Redwood. The audience were all enraptured by this story of a Soviet agent and his MI6 handler.

The year is 1981. Tehran is in violent turmoil in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. The Soviets are planning to overthrow the Ayatollah’s fledgling Islamist regime. If they do so, one response from America – unknown to the public – would be to use nuclear weapons.

Redwood is the story of how at the height of the Cold War, one mysterious double agent, whose intelligence reached the highest levels of British and American governments, cracked open the KGB, revealed the Kremlin’s secret plot and prevented Armageddon.

‘Redwood’ was the MI6 codename for this unsung, hitherto unknown hero of the Cold War, a highly-trained six-foot-four Russian intelligence officer who chose to expose the KGB’s deepest secrets. This extraordinary story combines the shadowy world of The Spy and the Traitor with the action of SAS: Rogue Heroes.