The gripping story of how Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat expose some of the gravest state crimes of our era.

“If there were a Nobel Prize in uncovering war crimes Bellingcat would receive it” – Toomas Hendrik Ilves, former president of Estonia

This is the story of the organisation that identified the Russian spies behind the Salisbury Novichoc poisoning. Bellingcat’s rise reveals something new about our digitally mediated times: spying is no longer the preserve of nation states – anyone with an internet connection can do it. The balance between open and secret intelligence is shifting. The most useful stuff is often public. Bellingcat, you suspect, knows more than the suits of MI6; certainly, it’s nimbler. “An intelligence agency for the people,” as Higgins’s subtitle puts it.
The book is an addictive read as the author reveals truths about the world we live in that we no longer have to just believe in. We now have the tools to go and check the facts for ourselves.