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Published Sep 2023
384 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
A gripping standalone spy thriller from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Slow Horses, with a riveting reveal about a disastrous MI5 mission in Cold War Berlin—an absolute must-read for Slough House fans.
Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service. Monochrome's mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so.
But MI5's formidable First Desk did not become Britain's top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn. Now the administration that created Monochrome has been ousted, the investigation is a total bust—and Griselda and Malcolm are stuck watching as their career prospects are washed away by the pounding London rain.
Until the eve of Monochrome's shuttering, when an MI5 case file appears without explanation. It is the buried history of a classified operation in 1994 Berlin—an operation that ended in tragedy and scandal, whose cover-up has rewritten thirty years of Service history.
The Secret Hours is a dazzling entry point into Mick Herron's body of work, a standalone spy thriller that is at once unnerving, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny. It is also the breathtaking secret history that Slough House fans have been waiting for.
"Hailed as a twenty-first-century Le Carré, Herron is a master at portraying the dark, disturbing world of espionage... Gripping, cryptic, tragic, and suspenseful, this must-read will keep readers riveted from first page to last."
—Booklist (starred review)
"Espionage fans of all stripes will devour this exemplary outing."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Readers who've joined Herron in following the Slow Horses in a series of rollicking, scary novels won't be surprised to learn that everyone here looks down their noses at everyone else, that everyone has a price, and that conflicts within MI5 are much more likely to turn lethal than conflicts outside, against England's nominal enemies."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Great Britain has a long, rich history of how-it-really-works espionage fiction, and Mick Herron—stealthy as a secret agent—has written himself to the very top of the list. If you haven't already been recruited, start with The Secret Hours—all Herron's trademark strengths are here: tension, intrigue, observation, humor, absurdity ... and pitch-perfect prose."
—Lee Child
"The Secret Hours is wonderful. It's Mick Herron at his best, taking us into a dark world where there is high action, a spinning moral compass, and hidden motives on every page. And, oh, yes, the fun—Herron's greatest talent may be the examination of serious things with a perfectly wry sense of humor."
—Michael Connelly
"I doubt I'll read a more enjoyable novel all year. The Secret Hours has it all: thrilling action scenes, crackling dialogue, characters to infuriate and beguile, and a neatly intricate plot. And through it all cuts Herron's acerbic wit, its effect heightened by the glimpses he allows us, from time to time, from his world to ours."
—Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
"A deft knockout of a story, with an arc of history, written with humor and style. Mick Herron is one of the best writers of spy fiction working today."
—Martin Cruz Smith
This information about The Secret Hours was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mick Herron is a British novelist and short story writer who was born in Newcastle and studied English at Oxford. He is the author of the Slough House espionage series (soon to be an Apple TV+ show starring Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas), four Oxford mysteries, and several standalone novels. His work has won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, and the Ellery Queen Readers Award, and been nominated for the Macavity, Barry, Shamus, and Theakstons Novel of the Year Awards. He currently lives in Oxford and writes full-time.
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