THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*

*A 'Book of the Year' in The Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, Observer, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Sunday Express, TLS, Irish Times*

'Pure class' Ian Rankin 'Pitch-perfect' Lee Child

'A powerful standalone spy thriller from a true contemporary master' Daily Telegraph

Trying to investigate the Secret Service is like trying to get rid of the stink of dead badger. Hard.

For two years the government's Monochrome inquiry has produced nothing more than a series of dead ends.

The Service has kept what happened in the newly reunified Berlin under wraps for decades, and intends for it to stay that way.

But then the OTIS file turns up.

What classified secrets does it hold? And what damage will it create?

All Max Janácek knows is that someone is chasing him through the pitch-dark country lanes and they want him gone.

WE ALL HAVE JOBS TO DO IN THE DAYLIGHT. IT'S WHAT YOU DO IN THE SECRET HOURS THAT REVEALS WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

'Wonderful . . . high action, a spinning moral compass, and hidden motives on every page' Michael Connelly

*Mick Herron's The Secret Hours was a Sunday Times Number Four bestseller in hardback in the second week of September 2023

"Regular readers will enjoy identifying some familiar Slow Horse characters who appear here under other identities, but of most note is a new maturity to the writing that brings home the human cost of espionage and rejuvenates this terrific series" - Sunday Times books of the year

"This was the best year since the 1970s for spy thrillers. Mick Herron's The Secret Hours was a delight" - Sunday Times critics favourite read of the year

"A powerful standalone spy thriller from a true contemporary master" - Daily Telegraph books of the year

"As Mick Herron observed in his Slow Horses origin novel, The Secret Hours (Baskerville), there's a long list of spy novelists who have been pegged as the heir to John le Carré. Herron must be in pole position for principal legatee" - Guardian best crime and thrillers of 2023

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Splendid

"I devoured The Secret Hours in one sitting" - The Spectator books of the year

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The Secret Hours is bliss

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The novel I enjoyed most was The Secret Hours by Mick Herron . . . it is funny, sharply observed and almost uniquely acute and sensitive in its consideration of something most novelists seem to regard with a lofty uninterest: the world of work

"This is a more sober work than Herron's comical Slough House novels but even at his most serious he provides more good gags than you'll find in the entire Christmas TV comedy schedule" - Daily Mirror crime and thrillers highlight

"A deliciously cynical comedy of manners that is probably Herron's most mature spy novel to date" - Irish Times best crime fiction of 2023

"Mick Herron's The Secret Hours was another highlight, and looks certain to bring more awards to the author's growing collection" - Sunday Express crime and thriller highlights 2023

"2023 was a vintage year for crime with too many good books to mention but among many others I loved . . . Mick Herron's The Secret Hours" - Nation Cymru picks of 2023

"Not only the finest writer of espionage fiction we have, Mick Herron is also one of the funniest and his latest, The Secret Hours, is proof of both. While not strictly speaking a Slough House novel, it's part of that universe and, for fans of Jackson Lamb (and who isn't?), it's both a thrilling and poignant origin story. Herron is simply incapable of writing a bad book and this is one of his very best" - Daily Express books of the year

"The Secret Hours is a genesis story for fans of Mick Herron's Slow Horses series. All his trademarks are here: layered prose, a deftly unravelled plot, lashings of caustic wit, and a cast of morally-compromised yet ultimately sympathetic characters" - Daily Express books of the year

"Herron has become something of a laureate of decrepitude" - Guardian

"[Mick Herron] proves himself a modern rival to Ian Fleming and John Le Carré . . . This satire-flecked thriller should establish Herron as an institution" - Sunday Times

"[A] terrific new novel . . . Herron's traditional tradecraft is on show - the Blackadderesque relish of words, the spy-like manipulation of the reader, the understanding of how the English fend off the serious with humour" - The Times

"Herron is a subtle writer who offers a great deal, including psychological insights that stay with you long after the clever plot is complete" - Literary Review

"A fascinating insight into the machinations of the secret service and the witty writing lifts it above the average thriller" - Good Housekeeping

"Never has a work of popular fiction delighted me more . . . The Secret Hours will become not so much a novel as a machine for delivering pleasure" - The Spectator

"I'll be amazed if I read a better book this year. Tense and darkly comic, with razor-sharp prose that revels in the absurdity of modern-day Britain, The Secret Hours achieves the seemingly impossible by improving on the Slough House series" - Daily Express

"Herron keeps up his gravity-defying balancing act: belly-laugh spy spoof on one side, elegiac state-of-the-nation satire on the other, with a thin, taut line of polished prose between" - Financial Times

"The Secret Hours has all of Herron's tight plotting and characteristically low-key humour . . . It's an excellent standalone, but fans of his Slough House books would do well to pick it up too" - Observer

"Mick Herron is one of the beadiest satirists of our times . . . one of his best books yet" - Daily Telegraph

"Twisty, intriguing fun" - The i

"A very clever and often darkly funny tale of espionage . . . A thoroughly enjoyable spy romp" - Radio Times

"Blisteringly exciting and darkly funny" - Radio Times

"Safe to say Herron's trademark humour is woven in throughout . . . Big issues come under the spotlight - who owns your data, identity, loyalty, truth and realpolitik, but all the characters feel human and individual. Though it's described as a standalone and can easily be read as such, lovers of the Slough House series will pick up on some familiar characters being illuminated in new ways" - Aberdeen Journal

"This is a stand-alone thriller of extreme brilliance (obviously), but it also works as a deeply satisfying origin story for aspects of the existing books" - Sunday Times

"I can't think of many things more pleasurable than hunkering down with Mick Herron's Slow Horses series, capped off with this year's deeply satisfying The Secret Hours . . . I like these better than John le Carré, which is saying something" - Sunday Times my favourite books to curl up with at Christmas

"A master of espionage fiction and a treat to read" - Observer

"Mick Herron is our best and most topical spy writer" - Guardian, What We're Reading

"Herron steps away from his Slow Horses, but not the world of espionage, for this thriller . . . offering a revealing sidelight into the pre-history of Slough House. More sombre than usual but still compelling" - Mail on Sunday

"Wryly humorous in places, well written and full of tension" - Irish Examiner

"Nobody does disenchanted spies quite like Mick Herron, and in the standalone thriller The Secret Hours, read by the always impressive Sean Barrett, he is on top form. Fans of the Slough House series will be delighted by this tale of a cold war mission in Berlin gone wrong . . . A rich seam of disillusion is baked into Barrett's rendition; you can almost see the anonymous corridors of power shutting doors in the investigators' faces" - Financial Times

"[A] masterly novel . . . Set in a political landscape populated with vividly familiar figures, Herron's novel combines an elegantly twisty plot with pitch-black comedy" - Irish Daily Mail

"Superbly, breathtakingly, well-plotted" - Bookseller

"Fans of the Slough House series will rejoice at this standalone thriller, once again set in a world of espionage, from which all glamour is largely expunged . . . Beginning with a breathlessly exciting pursuit, and moving on to a separate timeline set in post-reunification Berlin, the author's mordant wit is finely deployed on every page - just one of the familiar elements that will delight readers. Watch out for a terrific twist" - Bookseller

"Herron has been compared to John le Carré for the intricacy of his plotting and the thoroughness of his world building, though the two men differ greatly in tone and in focus. He has also been compared to Charles Dickens and P.G. Wodehouse for his lacerating descriptions and delight in the absurd . . . The Secret Hours is classic Herron, featuring mordant humour, bureaucratic power plays, underappreciated functionaries, bravura action sequences and at least one unexpected casualty" - New York Times

"Herron's narrative moves with ease between present and past, England and Germany, action and satire" - Dow Jones ‘Mysteries’

"I'm going to read it again, out of sheer admiration for its plotting" - Tablet