The Secret Hours

*PRE-ORDER THE NEW NOVEL FROM MICK HERRON, AUTHOR OF THE #1 BESTSELLING SLOUGH HOUSE THRILLERS*

'Herron is at the summit of a new golden age of spy fiction' Sunday Times

'The foremost living spy novelist in the English language' New Statesman

Monochrome is a busted flush - an inquiry into the misdeeds of the intelligence services, established by a vindictive prime minister but rendered toothless by a wily chief spook. For years it has ground away uselessly, interviewing witnesses with nothing to offer, producing a report with nothing to say, while the civil servants at its helm see their careers disappearing into a black hole.

And then the OTIS file falls into their hands . . .

What secrets does this hold that see a long-redundant spy being chased through Devon's green lanes in the dark? What happened in a newly reunified Berlin that someone is desperate to keep under wraps? And who will win the battle for the soul of the secret service - or was that decided a long time ago?

Spies and pen-pushers, politicians and PAs, high-flyers, time-servers and burn-outs . . . They all have jobs to do in the daylight.

But what they do in the secret hours reveals who they really are.

'All Herron's trademark strengths are here: tension, intrigue, observation, humour, absurdity . . . and pitch-perfect prose' Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels

'A deft knockout of a story . . . Mick Herron is one of the best writers of spy fiction working today' Martin Cruz Smith, author of Gorky Park

'I doubt I'll read a more enjoyable novel all year. The Secret Hours has it all ' Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train

'The Secret Hours [is] Mick Herron at his best' Michael Connelly, author of Desert Star