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Book Summary and Reviews of The Secret Hours by Mick Herron

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron

The Secret Hours

by Mick Herron

  • Critics' Consensus (12):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2023, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"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.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Cloggie Downunder

Topical, funny and very clever.
The Secret Hours is a stand-alone novel by award-winning, best-selling British author, Mick Herron. When the government initiates its inquiry into historical overreaching by the intelligence services, First Desk is dismissive with her PA about its impact, but is nonetheless making contingency plans. One of the civil service staff seconded as secretary to the inquiry believes it will be a launchpad for his career; the other is under no such illusion. First Desk leaves them in no doubt that access to files will be extremely challenging.

Two years on, by day 371 and after 136 witnesses, secretary second chair, Malcolm Kyle is fully resigned to the knowledge that Monochrome, fed only volunteered information from the public, is “a toothless committee, which has wasted all these months chewing empty mouthfuls”, when a highly classified file appears in his shopping trolley, a file concerning something that happened in Berlin in 1994. The right thing to do is to send it back to Regents Park, but he and Griselda Fleet, secretary first chair, are just disgruntled enough to put the file before the committee. On whose behalf they are poking this sleeping tiger remains a guessing game.

After two decades in his cottage in North Devon, Max Janacek is almost exactly what he pretends to be, a retired academic. When he disarms the woman breaking into his kitchen, and narrowly escapes her associates, he knows his cover has been blown, but by whom, and why? Certainly not the Park, and the inept effort rules out other intelligence services. And living under the radar all this time means the why must relate to his past.

In early 1994, a smart young civil service officer going under the name of Alison North was sent to Berlin, supposedly a routine secondment, but tasked by David Cartwright with covertly observing the activities of the 2IC in the Berlin Station house, Brinsley Miles. With barely nine months’ experience at the Park, Alison was unlikely to uncover anything that might taint a seasoned former joe like Miles. And yet…

While not a Slough House book, fans of the series must read this one, it has important back story on several key characters and will surely be relevant in the next book of the series. The story behind a certain photograph that features in Herron's short story, Standing By The Wall is revealed, and the transcripts of Monochrome sessions, all boring and irrelevant, demonstrate that Herron has a firm grasp on how British government bureaucracy really works.

It takes but a few lines to conclude that First Desk is still Diana Taverner. It is eventually clear just who Alison North is, and even if he is never mentioned by that name, the guy with the mysteriously appearing cigarette who punctuates his speech with farts and tells off colour jokes could be none other than Jackson Lamb, a deduction reinforced by “This monster hasn’t the manners of a zoo-bred warthog. Though he does have the looks and the charm, as you’ve doubtless discovered already” and “Miles can be abrasive. A bit of a foul-mouthed pig. He was trying this identity on for a joke once, and the wind changed, so he stayed like that.”

Herron’s tightly-plotted tale features political machinations around privatisation, a Regent’s Park mole, an executed asset, betrayals, blackmail and a trap to catch a murderer. As always, he gives the reader plenty of dark humour, some marvellous turns of phrase and a very satisfying conclusion. Topical, funny and very clever.

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Author Information

Mick Herron Author Biography

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.

Link to Mick Herron's Website

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