The Secret Hours: The Instant Sunday Times Bestselling Thriller from the Author of Slow Horses

Heart be still! Mick Herron is back with another standout spy thriller and it’s as good as its predecessors. Which means it’s the best in its genre because Herron is, post Le Carre’ and Charles McCarry, the best writer alive in the field spy fiction. I hesitate to say he’s outdone himself with this volume because he always outdoes himself, moving from peak of grandeur to still high peak, but he really has outdone himself with this volume, whose twisty, elegant--mocking or lyrical one moment, then suddenly brutal real—narrative lays the groundwork for all the preceding Slough House books. (If you haven’t seen the TV adaptation of these books, Slow Horses, starring Gary Oldman, it’s worth subscribing to Apple+ just to see it. A new set of episodes is coming up in December.)The drivers for this, running on parallel but separated narrative tracks, are two incidents: the botchedabduction of a long dormant ex-spy –who wants him and why>?—and the initiation of Monochrome, an inquiry into the operations the British Secret Service,” in the prime minister’s word, its ”historical over-reaching.” The Service’s First Desk, a formidable and fierce creature who is Britain’s top spy, quickly puts a spoke in the inquiry and now waits for it to be shut down, a failure. Then someone leaks a classified document to one of the two career civil servants assigned to Monochrome and Monochrome has new life. A new witness is called. Her story, and history, are astounding. And the two story lines coalesce. Secrets are not so much revealed –certainly not made public!—but they peek their noses out from beneath the covers. And we understand better the origins of Slough House, and of its supervisor, the foul, obnoxious but mysteriously effective Jackson Lam, “a bastard wrapped in benign swaddling,” one character calls him, having just seen him in one of his rare benign moments, as well as various other characters from the previous novels.As always, Herron is a master phrase maker, elegant, ironic and cynical, and …. Funny more often than one would expect in the telling of such dark tales. A trip out of the office is described in memory “as if the journey were some kind of parable.” (Which everything almost is in Herron’s twisty world.) A character imparts this gem of spy wisdom to a newbie recruit: “Friends are just strangers you haven’t pissed off yet.”I haven’t mentioned the killings yet or the other gratuitous violence that takes place. Maybe it’s not all the time, but spying a dangerous, harsh trade. What pops up more often is the other side of that world: chronic distrust and confusion, backbiting, struggles for power, personal greed and ambition and public power, all put on display in an exuberant prose that resembles who? Not Le Carre, which would seem the most likely, but maybe Waugh, his combination of acrid social and psychological criticism with an almost dancing, mock lighthearted style.

Splendid , as expected. Terse dialogues, unexpected weaving of stories , impeccable twists and surprises. Thank you , Mr Herron.

There’s nobody like Mick Herron to grab you from the first line of his books

If you saddled up to the Slow Horses books then read this book.However do not expect the Slow Horse formula that hooked you on to Mick Herron.However you will accumulate the richness of Berlin and Spook Street, when the wall was torn down.AND, quite possibly some history behind the more loveable characters working in and with the Slow Horses. That’s all I can say , after all I have read of Mick Herron I think like a “Joe” now.BUT: What I will give away is that First Desk at the Park continues to manage the secret service in her charmingly ruthless manner.A great read.

Makes you think. Read this book before starting the Slow Horses series as it sort introduces some characters. Excellent reading, if you like spy novels you’ll really enjoy.