With over 40 years' experience in international journalism John Simpson has dodged the bullets in Tiananmen Square, danced on top of the Berlin Wall, and was on hand for the revolutions in Czechoslovakia and Romania. He stood alongside Boris Yeltsin during the KGB coup which brought down the Soviet Union, and was the first Western journalist to penetrate the KGB headquarters in Moscow.

Now turning to fiction John's new book - MOSCOW, MIDNIGHT is a fast paced and revelatory thriller. Featuring Jon Swift, one of old stock of journos - cynical, cantankerous and overweight the book opens with the discovery of the body of Jon's friend and government minister - and something about his death and links to a string of Russian government figures who had met similarly 'accidental' fates doesn't seem right.

When the police refuse to investigate further, Swift gets in touch with his contacts

in Moscow, determined to find out if his hunch is correct. The truth comes at a price, and it may cost him everything.

In this fascinating evening John will introduce his new book as well as some of the difficult and often dangerous situations he has faced as a reporter, as well as some of the more light-hearted and amusing tales from his own travels interwoven with stories of figures who went before him, such as Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn and Charles Wheeler.