Joan Mackenzie reviews The Secret Hours by Mick Herron

Hello I'm Joan and this book is called The Secret Hours by Mick Herron. Now if you’ve read the brilliant Slough House series or watched it on TV you will know that this guy’s a master at the things that he does. This new book is a standalone it’s not part of the Slough House series although there are some oblique references to people that if you’ve read them you may remember. But I think because of that it’s quite a good entry point to come into Mick Herron if you’ve never read him before. And I promise you that if you do you will be hooked. So this is the story of a couple of operatives who are sent away to set up a committee to investigate some goings on back in Berlin in 1994. But it is a committee that nobody wants. The woman who runs MI5 who is known as First Desk she most certainly doesn’t want it so she’s making sure that the committee achieves absolutely nothing and that everything is a whitewash. However, she reckons without two of the people on that committee who the night before they’re to be disbanded suddenly find themselves in possession of a file from MI5 from back in the day which is incendiary. And these two go rogue and it’s wonderful to see what happens. The politicians in this book are really sleazy and manipulative and self-concerned and First Desk has an agenda from which she will not be  thwarted under any circumstances. And it’s a wonderful thing to watch these two go off the reservation and make things happen. I really loved it. The characters are brilliant and in my opinion, Mick Herron is a genius.

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