The siege - Cathy Scott-Clark

The Siege by Adrian Levy & Cathy Scott-Clark -
a searing account of the 2005 terrorist attacks at Mumbai's famous Taj Hotel

On 26th November 2008 the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai is besieged by Pakistani Islamists, armed with explosives and machine guns.

For three days, guests and staff of the hotel are trapped as the terrorists run amok.

On 29th November commandos launch Operation Black Tornado. The world holds its breath.

The Siege is a helter-skelter thriller, threaded with powerful human stories. By turns tragic and heroic, the events are told through a cast of real characters, who were thrown together in the luxurious, century-old Taj: waiters, chefs, captains of industry, hedge funders, celebrities, tourists, policemen, special forces and terrorists. For the first time, this astonishing book takes us through the news footage and into the heart of the hotel. Each hostage has a choice: hide, run or fight. What would you do?

This classic non-fiction account will grip readers of No Easy Day and No Way Down and will be enjoyed by fans of 'United 93' and 'The Towering Inferno'.

Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy are the authors of four books, most recently the acclaimed The Meadow: Kashmir 1995 - Where the Terror Began. For 16 years they worked as foreign correspondents and investigative reporters for the Sunday Times and the Guardian. In 2009 the One World Trust named them British Journalists of the Year, having won Foreign Correspondents of the Year in 2004. They co-produce documentaries which have been nominated at the Amnesty International Media Awards and the Edinburgh International Television Festival, and longlisted at the BAFTAs. Currently they are filming several new projects in South Asia.

Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy are the authors of four books, most recently the acclaimed The Meadow: Kashmir 1995 - Where the Terror Began. For 16 years they worked as foreign correspondents and investigative reporters for the Sunday Times and the Guardian. In 2009 the One World Trust named them British Journalists of the Year, having won Foreign Correspondents of the Year in 2004. They co-produce documentaries which have been nominated at the Amnesty International Media Awards and the Edinburgh International Television Festival, and longlisted at the BAFTAs. Currently they are filming several new projects in South Asia.

Compulsive and brilliantly researched. Reads like a fast-paced thriller
William Dalrymple

Totally unputdownable, utterly absorbing - a minute-by-minute account of a hotel under onslaught. Here we have hostages, police and terrorists; their every fateful action and decision; the moments of sheer chaos and the crucial seconds of clarity

Paul French, author of the Dagger and Edgar Award-winning Midnight in Peking

Meticulously researched, beautifully written: an unstoppable read. This is not your ordinary thriller
Ahmed Rashid, author of Descent into Chaos

A heart-pounding read and an investigative tour de force, The Siege is an essential primer on terror in the 21st Century. It shows where mass-murderers come from, how they think and what it is like to be caught in the cross-hairs of their madness
Blaine Harden, author of Escape from Camp 14

Propulsive, intense, exceedingly well-reported . . . a tragedy and a thriller with concussive human and political resonance. I read it in what felt like three blinks
New York Times

Heartrending, chilling, compelling, astonishing . . . as action-packed as any thriller and so hard to put down that it must surely end up as a movie
Sunday Times

An investigative masterpiece... so vivid it ought to be a movie
Tina Brown