About the Author

Julie McDowall is a freelance journalist and book critic specialising in the nuclear threat. Her writing has appeared in The Times, Economist, Spectator, Guardian, TLS, Prospect and Independent, and she is also the host of the Atomic Hobo podcast in which she reveals findings in the nuclear archives and reports on her travels to nuclear bunkers and other Cold War sites.

Reviews

Timely ... McDowall's excellent book is a chilling reminder of the horrific reality of nuclear war
*Guardian *April 2024's Best Paperbacks**

Cracking
*Sunday Telegraph*

So entertaining
*The Times*

Very good ... A sobering book, but a gripping one
*Spectator*

Julie McDowall's thoroughly gripping study ... makes for genuinely startling and sometimes darkly funny reading... [it's] brilliantly chilling and sparkily engaging
*Mail on Sunday*

Attack Warning Red! is a timely reminder of the mind-blanking horror of nuclear warfare, as it menaces Europe once more
*Sunday Times*

An atomic Dad's Army, McDowall's history of the UK's nuclear civil defence is full of hilarious gems
*Daily Telegraph*

Most interesting
*Times Literary Supplement*

Simultaneously horrifying, weirdly nostalgic and darkly hilarious
*Mark Haddon, author of The Porpoise*

Impossible to believe, just as hard to put down. Urgent. Terrifying
*Dan Snow, historian and host of History Hit*