The Secret Hours by Mick Herron
Nov. 9th, 2023 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
When your cover is blown … where do you hide?
Two years ago, the Monochrome inquiry was set up to investigate the British secret service. Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out misconduct, allowing the civil servants seconded to the inquiry, Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, unfettered access to confidential information in the service archives.
But with progress blocked at every turn, Monochrome is circling the drain … Until the OTIS file appears out of nowhere.
What classified secrets does OTIS 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.
The popular opinion among Westminster’s political circles was that the Monochrome inquiry was Anthony Sparrow’s (the then prime minister’s thuggish Svengali) attempt to rein in the Secret Service by uncovering its shameful secrets. Certainly Griselda Fleet (a middling civil servant in the Home Office’s personnel department who is marking her time until retirement) knew that being hand-chosen by Sparrow to be first chair it was very much a poison chalice and plans to do her usual, competent job to the letter of the remit and then return to the Home Office as soon as she can. Her number two - Malcolm Kyle - however, saw Monochrome as a step up to better things from his previous role in the office of the deputy manager to the cabinet secretary and the kickstart his graduate career with the Civil Service needed. But when Sparrow makes a critical error in setting the terms of reference for the inquiry, Fleet and Kyle discover that they are unable to compel Diana Taverner (First Desk of the Service) to turn over documentation and Monochrome quickly turns into a white elephant.
371 days later and there’s a new prime minister in Number 10 and Sparrow has been missing since the events in BAD ACTORS, but no one seems willing to put Monochrome out of its misery. With no end in sight Kyle is worried that not only will he not be able to return to his former role in cabinet secretary’s office, but he may end up banished to the hinterlands of Sunderland. Then persons unknown pass Kyle the OTIS file, which recounts a mission in Berlin in the 1990s organised by David Cartwright, Fleet and Kyle know that this is something that can turn Monochrome’s fortunes around …
Meanwhile, having neutered Monochrome’s scope, Diana Taverner has turned her attention to the latest government attempts to privatise aspects of the security forces because she hasn’t spent years clawing her way to First Desk just to see it sold out to corporate interests. And deep in the Devon countryside, retired academic Max Janáček, wakes up to discover a team of people breaking into his cottage. Although his espionage work was fairly low key, he’s sure that it’s something to do with his past as a spy and as such, the only thing to do is to go on the run until he can find out what’s going on …
Although not officially part of the SLOUGH HOUSE SERIES, Mick Herron’s latest spy thriller stands adjacent to it so if you’re a SLOUGH HOUSE fan, you’ll enjoy seeing some of its characters get more page time and backstory here. Caustic, cynical and at times very funny, I hugely enjoyed this story which bounces between time periods but I’d suggest not reading STANDING BY THE WALL until afterwards as it does spoil some of the surprises.
It’s difficult to review this book without giving away some heavy spoilers so I’ll keep it as broad as I can. This book is not an official part of the the SLOUGH HOUSE SERIES but there is a large amount of overlap with those books as Diana Taverner has a big role here, as does one of the SLOUGH HOUSE regulars and one of the SLOUGH HOUSE recurrent characters (I won’t name either character but suffice to say that one of them probably won’t be a surprise but the other definitely will be). I had gone into this having read Herron’s last SLOUGH HOUSE short story - STANDING BY THE WALL - which touches on the Monochrome inquiry. My advice is that if you are a SLOUGH HOUSE completist but have not yet got THE SECRET HOURS, then I think you are better served reading STANDING BY THE WALL afterwards and not before because it did enable me to guess one of the major plot points and while it did not spoil my enjoyment of this book, I think I would have got even more enjoyment had I not made that guess early on.
This book revolves around Griselda Fleet (a black civil servant whose career was curtailed when she got labelled as a trouble maker for pointing out some of the more institutionalised racism on display at the Home Office) and Malcolm Kyle (an Oxbridge graduate whose view of his own abilities and career trajectory is at sad odds with reality). The way Herron contrasts the two of them works very well, particularly when it comes to the casual racism that Fleet encounters both from Kyle and others in the Civil Service and how she has had to learn not to react to any of it in order to preserve her career and pension rights after her husband’s gambling habit and subsequent desertion left her the sole bread winner for her and her teenage daughter.
Kyle is academically bright but politically clueless and his upbringing has left him with a series of what might be called OCD ticks that dominate his thought processes - the way Herron shows them could have been played for a cheap laugh but as they go on, I developed a lot of sympathy for Kyle as he is blind to the damage that’s been done to him. A scene where he finally realises his true place in the Civil Service and how he is regarded is particularly well done.
That’s not to say that Herron’s customary wit is missing here. On the contrary there are a lot of laughs to be had, not just from his savage take on how the boards of public inquiries are put together and what their participants are looking for from it or why the government is looking to privatise public services, but also slapstick scenes (such as the pensioner Janáček escaping the team looking for him with the help of a very dead badger).
There are a number of time jumps within the text - firstly as Herron goes from setting up Sparrow’s decision to proceed with Monochrome to where the inquiry stands at the present day and then as Monochrome bounces from the current testimony of someone involved with the OTIS file to what happened in Berlin back in the 90s. If I’m being honest, then the more conventional flashbacks to the OTIS events worked better for me than the Monochrome inquiry time jumps. Although Herron signals the Monochrome jumps in a chapter entitled MONOCHROME, THEN AND NOW, I did lose where I was a couple of times and had to flick back to work out what period it is. Again, none of this affected my enjoyment but I mention it because having leant the book to my dad, he said he had much more difficulty following what was going on so it is something you might want to be aware of.
Janáček is an interesting character - clever, resourceful and filled with secrets. I enjoyed watching him work backwards through his handlers (a welcome return to old face and bumbling milkman John Bachelor and introducing a new milkman, the more savvy Shelley McVie who I would definitely like to see more of if Herron chooses to use her in future SLOUGH HOUSE books). I always enjoy seeing Diana Taverner at work and here we see more of her political savvy as she deals with the Whitehall machine to preserve her territory but also more of her managerial style as we see how she deals with the boys and girls in the Park to keep them on their toes.
A large part of the story deals with the OTIS events of Berlin in the 1990s. These are perhaps the most straightforward parts of the book as an agent known as and agent called North recounts how they came to be sent over there to audit the books. I really enjoyed these sections - North’s narration combines cynicism with nostalgia as they examine their own innocence at the start of their career and there is a welcome cameo from David Cartwright (the OB from SLOUGH HOUSE) who was then First Desk with concerns and games of his own.
The way Herron weaves the various strands of the story together is masterful. If I am going to be picky, then I would question the believability of one element of the denouement, which is just ever so slightly over-contrived for me (although Herron does have an explanation for that) but that doesn’t spoil the overall effectiveness.
Ultimately, while this can be read as a standalone novel, I think you get a lot more from it if you are already familiar with the SLOUGH HOUSE SERIES (just don’t read STANDING BY THE WALL first). Certainly, I came away from it feeling like I had much more of a sense of who some of the SLOUGH HOUSE characters are and what had shaped them than I did before I read this book and, as ever, I am drumming my fingers and counting down until the next SLOUGH HOUSE book comes out.
The Verdict:
Although not officially part of the SLOUGH HOUSE SERIES, Mick Herron’s latest spy thriller stands adjacent to it so if you’re a SLOUGH HOUSE fan, you’ll enjoy seeing some of its characters get more page time and backstory here. Caustic, cynical and at times very funny, I hugely enjoyed this story which bounces between time periods but I’d suggest not reading STANDING BY THE WALL until afterwards as it does spoil some of the surprises.
Two years ago, the Monochrome inquiry was set up to investigate the British secret service. Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out misconduct, allowing the civil servants seconded to the inquiry, Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, unfettered access to confidential information in the service archives.
But with progress blocked at every turn, Monochrome is circling the drain … Until the OTIS file appears out of nowhere.
What classified secrets does OTIS 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.
The popular opinion among Westminster’s political circles was that the Monochrome inquiry was Anthony Sparrow’s (the then prime minister’s thuggish Svengali) attempt to rein in the Secret Service by uncovering its shameful secrets. Certainly Griselda Fleet (a middling civil servant in the Home Office’s personnel department who is marking her time until retirement) knew that being hand-chosen by Sparrow to be first chair it was very much a poison chalice and plans to do her usual, competent job to the letter of the remit and then return to the Home Office as soon as she can. Her number two - Malcolm Kyle - however, saw Monochrome as a step up to better things from his previous role in the office of the deputy manager to the cabinet secretary and the kickstart his graduate career with the Civil Service needed. But when Sparrow makes a critical error in setting the terms of reference for the inquiry, Fleet and Kyle discover that they are unable to compel Diana Taverner (First Desk of the Service) to turn over documentation and Monochrome quickly turns into a white elephant.
371 days later and there’s a new prime minister in Number 10 and Sparrow has been missing since the events in BAD ACTORS, but no one seems willing to put Monochrome out of its misery. With no end in sight Kyle is worried that not only will he not be able to return to his former role in cabinet secretary’s office, but he may end up banished to the hinterlands of Sunderland. Then persons unknown pass Kyle the OTIS file, which recounts a mission in Berlin in the 1990s organised by David Cartwright, Fleet and Kyle know that this is something that can turn Monochrome’s fortunes around …
Meanwhile, having neutered Monochrome’s scope, Diana Taverner has turned her attention to the latest government attempts to privatise aspects of the security forces because she hasn’t spent years clawing her way to First Desk just to see it sold out to corporate interests. And deep in the Devon countryside, retired academic Max Janáček, wakes up to discover a team of people breaking into his cottage. Although his espionage work was fairly low key, he’s sure that it’s something to do with his past as a spy and as such, the only thing to do is to go on the run until he can find out what’s going on …
Although not officially part of the SLOUGH HOUSE SERIES, Mick Herron’s latest spy thriller stands adjacent to it so if you’re a SLOUGH HOUSE fan, you’ll enjoy seeing some of its characters get more page time and backstory here. Caustic, cynical and at times very funny, I hugely enjoyed this story which bounces between time periods but I’d suggest not reading STANDING BY THE WALL until afterwards as it does spoil some of the surprises.
It’s difficult to review this book without giving away some heavy spoilers so I’ll keep it as broad as I can. This book is not an official part of the the SLOUGH HOUSE SERIES but there is a large amount of overlap with those books as Diana Taverner has a big role here, as does one of the SLOUGH HOUSE regulars and one of the SLOUGH HOUSE recurrent characters (I won’t name either character but suffice to say that one of them probably won’t be a surprise but the other definitely will be). I had gone into this having read Herron’s last SLOUGH HOUSE short story - STANDING BY THE WALL - which touches on the Monochrome inquiry. My advice is that if you are a SLOUGH HOUSE completist but have not yet got THE SECRET HOURS, then I think you are better served reading STANDING BY THE WALL afterwards and not before because it did enable me to guess one of the major plot points and while it did not spoil my enjoyment of this book, I think I would have got even more enjoyment had I not made that guess early on.
This book revolves around Griselda Fleet (a black civil servant whose career was curtailed when she got labelled as a trouble maker for pointing out some of the more institutionalised racism on display at the Home Office) and Malcolm Kyle (an Oxbridge graduate whose view of his own abilities and career trajectory is at sad odds with reality). The way Herron contrasts the two of them works very well, particularly when it comes to the casual racism that Fleet encounters both from Kyle and others in the Civil Service and how she has had to learn not to react to any of it in order to preserve her career and pension rights after her husband’s gambling habit and subsequent desertion left her the sole bread winner for her and her teenage daughter.
Kyle is academically bright but politically clueless and his upbringing has left him with a series of what might be called OCD ticks that dominate his thought processes - the way Herron shows them could have been played for a cheap laugh but as they go on, I developed a lot of sympathy for Kyle as he is blind to the damage that’s been done to him. A scene where he finally realises his true place in the Civil Service and how he is regarded is particularly well done.
That’s not to say that Herron’s customary wit is missing here. On the contrary there are a lot of laughs to be had, not just from his savage take on how the boards of public inquiries are put together and what their participants are looking for from it or why the government is looking to privatise public services, but also slapstick scenes (such as the pensioner Janáček escaping the team looking for him with the help of a very dead badger).
There are a number of time jumps within the text - firstly as Herron goes from setting up Sparrow’s decision to proceed with Monochrome to where the inquiry stands at the present day and then as Monochrome bounces from the current testimony of someone involved with the OTIS file to what happened in Berlin back in the 90s. If I’m being honest, then the more conventional flashbacks to the OTIS events worked better for me than the Monochrome inquiry time jumps. Although Herron signals the Monochrome jumps in a chapter entitled MONOCHROME, THEN AND NOW, I did lose where I was a couple of times and had to flick back to work out what period it is. Again, none of this affected my enjoyment but I mention it because having leant the book to my dad, he said he had much more difficulty following what was going on so it is something you might want to be aware of.
Janáček is an interesting character - clever, resourceful and filled with secrets. I enjoyed watching him work backwards through his handlers (a welcome return to old face and bumbling milkman John Bachelor and introducing a new milkman, the more savvy Shelley McVie who I would definitely like to see more of if Herron chooses to use her in future SLOUGH HOUSE books). I always enjoy seeing Diana Taverner at work and here we see more of her political savvy as she deals with the Whitehall machine to preserve her territory but also more of her managerial style as we see how she deals with the boys and girls in the Park to keep them on their toes.
A large part of the story deals with the OTIS events of Berlin in the 1990s. These are perhaps the most straightforward parts of the book as an agent known as and agent called North recounts how they came to be sent over there to audit the books. I really enjoyed these sections - North’s narration combines cynicism with nostalgia as they examine their own innocence at the start of their career and there is a welcome cameo from David Cartwright (the OB from SLOUGH HOUSE) who was then First Desk with concerns and games of his own.
The way Herron weaves the various strands of the story together is masterful. If I am going to be picky, then I would question the believability of one element of the denouement, which is just ever so slightly over-contrived for me (although Herron does have an explanation for that) but that doesn’t spoil the overall effectiveness.
Ultimately, while this can be read as a standalone novel, I think you get a lot more from it if you are already familiar with the SLOUGH HOUSE SERIES (just don’t read STANDING BY THE WALL first). Certainly, I came away from it feeling like I had much more of a sense of who some of the SLOUGH HOUSE characters are and what had shaped them than I did before I read this book and, as ever, I am drumming my fingers and counting down until the next SLOUGH HOUSE book comes out.
The Verdict:
Although not officially part of the SLOUGH HOUSE SERIES, Mick Herron’s latest spy thriller stands adjacent to it so if you’re a SLOUGH HOUSE fan, you’ll enjoy seeing some of its characters get more page time and backstory here. Caustic, cynical and at times very funny, I hugely enjoyed this story which bounces between time periods but I’d suggest not reading STANDING BY THE WALL until afterwards as it does spoil some of the surprises.
