Book review: The Secret Hours by Mick Herron is a gripping spy thriller

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron

This gripping spy thriller, from the author of the Slough House series, is a standalone novel from a writer who has been described as the heir to John le Carré, the master of espionage.

It’s an interesting read with shades of players in recent British politics where the prime minister is described as “a walking non-disclosure agreement and if his domestic entanglements don’t undo him, his disregard for the truth will”.

There is a reference to Downing Street garden parties during
lockdown which piques interest. But this is merely the hinterland of the narrative which is all about intricately-wrought plotlines that constantly surprise.

In the world of this dense book, where nearly everyone has more than one identity, a hostile prime minister demanded the Monochrome inquiry two years ago investigating “historical over-reaching” by the British secret service. Its goal is to unearth any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer. The two civil servants seconded to the inquiry are Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle.

However, MI5’s boss, known as First Desk, is a formidable woman who doesn’t want the inquiry going anywhere. She sees it as the PM’s “bit of dick waving to signal his fury at earlier slights” and does everything she can to stymie it.

Dangerous characters populate this novel including Fabian De Vries, a friend of the PM who is chasing a government contract. His career includes an online gambling business and virtual reality porn. Not very classy. But then virtually nothing in the world conjured up by Mick Herron is anything other than murky.

The tale opens with a long redundant spy, Max Janacek, who has to run for his life when an intruder breaks into his house in rural north Devon. He is subsequently chased by someone on a motorbike but manages to escape. It takes ages to discover just why Max is targeted.

The progress of Monochrome is impeded at every turn until the Otis file appears out of nowhere. It reveals the secret history of an off-the-books operation in Cold War Berlin. This operation ended in tragedy and scandal.

A member of the secret service, Alison North, is assigned to Berlin, known as ‘the spooks’ zoo’ to observe Brinsley Miles, who likes the nightlife in the city. She is to accompany him on, as it turns out, his forays to strip clubs and dingy bars. He had spent time behind the Wall. The question implicit in the novel is what happened in a newly reunified Berlin that someone is trying to keep under wraps?

Miles tells Alison that he trades in gossip, paying for it in cash. “It’s most of what I do, yes. What did you think? That it was all tuxedos and Aston Martins?”

Certainly, there’s nothing glamorous about the world Herron describes so adroitly. Set in London and Berlin, it makes you wonder what lies behind the bright lights of these metropolises where an SUV with tinted windows, for example, carts Max away in broad daylight.

What makes the novel confusing but also exciting is the constant double-crossing, not to mention the unmasking of characters that are not what they seem. As one of the characters remarks: “Let’s not act like we have a moral high ground. We wouldn’t recognise one of those if it came with a
gradient warning sign.”

This book requires the reader’s full attention because of all the code names. It’s wryly humorous in places, well written, and full of tension. It portrays dark cynicism.

But it’s hard for the characters to be other than cynical seeing as how any certainties they have are routinely blown up.

• The Secret Hours by Mick Herron
• Baskerville, €16.99