The Secret Hours by Mick Herron
Hooray! Another novel from Mick Herron.
It's not technically a Slow Horses novel, but it does involve the service and the back story of where they came from. So, yeah, I'm there for it.
As usual, Her Majesty's realm (she's still alive at the time of the story) is in grave peril, and her secret service stands between Britain and disaster. And, as usual in Herron's stories, the primary perils seem to be from Her Majesty's own government.
Riffing on real life events, the service is facing outsourcing.
These policies generally don't work well for anyone except a few contractors. But outsourcing the functions of the secret service is utterly nuts.
And, not surprisingly, the process has attracted the worst sort of parties. Parties who want access to the secrets and control over who learns of them.
Not coincidently, the lunatic in number 10 has launched an open ended probe of wrongdoing by the secret service, looking for leverage. The PM has been tossed out, and the probe has been stymied by First Desk. But it continues to operate, for little purpose. Until someone feeds it an actual secret worth probing.
This triggers a reaction from someone who needs to keep that information secret. If the purpose of the leak was to poke a tiger, then it succeeded.
As the intrepid bureaucrats plug on with their duties, dangerous events unfold. And we learn more of what happened in Berlin, back in the day.
This is what we expect from Mick Herron. What more needs to be said.
- Mick Herron, The Secret Hours, New York, Soho Press, 2023.
Sunday Book Reviews
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