The Year of the Gun
A Sherlock Holmes themed spy thriller from the series shortlisted for the SpyMasters Book Prize 2025
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
SPY HUNTER SHORTLISTED FOR THE SPYMASTERS BEST ESPIONAGE NOVEL OF 2025, ALONGSIDE THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW BY I.S. BERRY AND GABRIEL'S MOON BY WILLIAM BOYD
'Irresistible' Guardian
'Impressive' Daily Mail
'Captivating' Mick Herron
1912. Released from the Secret Service, Wiggins sets out for New York and his lost lover Bela. But after an altercation on board, he finds himself among the low-life of Ireland's poorest city, Dublin.
Wiggins falls in with gangster Patrick O'Connell and is soon driving the boss's girlfriend around town. Molly wants O'Connell to support her Irish nationalist cause - a cause needing guns to defeat the British - and then they go to find them in America.
Finally, Wiggins can solve the mystery of Bela - and meet his old mentor, Sherlock Holmes, in a story of escalating intrigue, danger and violence.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1912, Lyle's ebullient but unfocused third Irregular thriller (after 2018's The Red Ribbon) finds Wiggins at loose ends in London after the completion of his work for Vernon Kell, head of the British Secret Service. Wiggins boards the Titanic hoping to reunite with his former lover, Bela Grybus, in America, but is ushered off the ship in Ireland following a brawl. After Wiggins steps in to protect Dublin gangster Patrick O'Connell from assailants on the street, O'Connell hires him for his muscle and brains. Wiggins is attracted to O'Connell's mistress, Molly Lansdown-Smith, an Englishwoman fighting for Irish independence, and grows close to an O'Connell henchman named Fitz. Shortly after Fitz is murdered, O'Connell and Molly sail to New York, Wiggins in tow, to buy guns for the Irish nationalist cause. In Manhattan, Wiggins searches for news of Bela and re-encounters his mentors, Kell and Sherlock Holmes. The myriad historical incidents and figures that stud the story add color, yet also make an already unwieldy plot at times hard to follow. The swashbuckling Wiggins would benefit from a less busy adventure next time.
