Jonathan Freedland
The Traitor’s Circle

Sunday 28 June 2026, 4.00pm
Layer Marney Tower, Layer Marney, Near Colchester, Essex, CO5 9US

Prize-winning journalist and acclaimed author of The Escape Artist Jonathan Freedland tells the thrilling true story of one of the most dramatic episodes of the second world war. With deep moral resonance for our own time, he asks what kind of person it takes to risk everything and stand up to tyranny.

Tickets: £14 (includes entrance to Layer Marney Tower and gardens)
Or all 3 events for £36
Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

The History Books Ticket Deal

Make an afternoon of it with our History Books ticket deal – £14 per event or all 3 events for £36
Discount automatically applied at checkout when tickets for all 3 events are booked:

12.00pm – Tony McMahon, Downfall of the Templars
2.00pm – Emily Hauser, Mythica
4.00pm – Jonathan Freedland, The Traitor’s Circle

The History Books at Layer Marney Tower, Sunday 28 June.

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the day.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.
☕  Layer Marney Tower Tea Room will be open and serving drinks and light snacks.
🚗 There is free parking at the venue.
♿ The venue is wheelchair accessible. There are disabled facilities on site.

Jonathan Freedland

Photo of Jonathan Freedland © Philippa Gedge

Jonathan Freedland is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Escape Artist which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford, Rathbones Folio and Waterstones Book of the Year prizes and in April 2025 was named by Kirkus Reviews as one of the Best Books of the 21st Century . It was translated into twenty one languages and appeared on numerous Book of the Year lists.

A Guardian columnist, Freedland has won awards for Columnist of the Year and Commentator of the Year and is a past winner of an Orwell Prize for Journalism. He is the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s contemporary history series, The Long View, and the author of twelve other books, three of them non-fiction, including his first, the award-winning Bring Home the Revolution. Among those books were nine thrillers, eight of them under the name Sam Bourne, including The Righteous Men which was a No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller and has sold over 2 million copies worldwide.

The Traitors Circle

The Rebels Against the Nazis and the Spy Who Betrayed Them.

The new thrilling non-fiction from the bestselling author of The Escape Artist.

A thrilling true story of courage, resistance and, ultimately, betrayal in the Third Reich by internationally bestselling author and prize-winning journalist Jonathan Freedland.

The Traitors Circle tells the true, but scarcely known story of a group of secret rebels against Hitler. Drawn from Berlin high society, they include senior army officers, top government officials, two countesses, an ambassador’s widow, a young heiress and a former model – all of them meeting in the shadows, whether hiding and rescuing Jews or plotting for a Germany freed from Nazi rule.

One day in September 1943 they gather for a tea party – unaware that one among them will betray the rest to the Gestapo. Pursued to near destruction by a cruel, calculating detective – a man with the blood of thousands on his hands – theirs is a story of rare heroism, sacrifice and inspiring endurance in the face of the most brutal regime in history.

In another page-turning work of nonfiction, Jonathan Freedland, acclaimed author of The Escape Artist, sheds light on one of the most dramatic episodes of the second world war, telling a story with deep moral resonance for our own time, one that asks what kind of person it takes to risk everything and stand up to tyranny.

‘An astonishing true story of courage, love and betrayal, told with the verve of a thriller. Freedland is a master at weaving spellbinding entertainments drawn from forgotten corners of history’

– Mick Herron

‘A story of unlikely rebels who had much to lose from resisting the Nazi regime, which so many of their peers supported. What made them trade personal safety for moral rectitude? Freedland’s answer is as tense as a thriller yet perceptive, thoughtful and

thoroughly researched. It made me think long after I’d turned the last page’

– Katja Hoyer, bestselling author of Blood and Iron

‘The Traitors Circle rivals Freedland’s superb The Escape Artist. A revelatory account of heroism and treachery in Nazi Germany, it based on original research and reads like a thriller. Totally gripping and timely’

– Jonathan Dimbleby

Photo of Layer Marney Tower © Red Carpet Video