Since 2017, the UK has seen 15 terrible terrorist attacks. But the atrocities we see on our BBC news alerts are the tip of an iceberg – at least twice as many plots have been foiled. Some were thwarted by nerve-wracking undercover operations; others were narrowly averted by heroic citizens, or ruined by the absurd mistakes of would-be attackers. Invariably, the all-too-human stories of these failed terrorists reveal the true picture of UK extremism. Author Lizzie Dearden, who at one point reported on Wanstead news for the Recorder, has interviewed counter-terrorism figures and assembled astonishing court testimony in writing Plotters: The UK Terrorists Who Failed. It offers a disturbing certainty – plotters will keep coming and to confront them we need to understand them.