The Secret Hours
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4.1 • 21 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Something happened in 1994 Berlin that forever changed MI5. Very few know that story and those who do will do anything to keep it secret.
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Spies behaving badly take center stage in this international espionage thriller. In the prequel to Mick Herron’s darkly humorous Slow Horses series (though this novel also stands on its own), civil servants Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle are trudging through a seemingly pointless investigation into the United Kingdom’s counterintelligence and security agency, MI5. Then suddenly they find themselves in possession of a mysterious file pertaining to an MI5 operation that took place during the fall of the Berlin Wall—and the details could shake the halls of British power until they crumble. Herron seamlessly splits the story between the Cold War and the present day, filling both timelines with distinctive, funny, and at times peculiar characters. His pointed wit and eye for bureaucratic detail often recall spy fiction-maestro John le Carré, and soft-spoken narrator Gerard Doyle captures every ounce of Herron’s cleverness and subtlety. If you’re new to the Slow Horses world, The Secret Hours is a perfect—and riveting—place to start.
