Summary
Summary
From CWA Gold Dagger winner Mick Herron comes a shocking, twisted novel of psychological suspense about one woman's attempt to be better than ordinary.
Twenty-six-year-old Maggie Barnes is someone you would never look at twice. Living alone in a month-to-month sublet in the huge city of London, with no family but an estranged sister, no partner, and not much in the way of friends, Maggie is just the kind of person who could vanish from the face of the earth without anyone taking notice.
Or just the kind of person MI5 needs to infiltrate the establishment and thwart an international plot that puts all of Britain at risk.
Now one young woman has the chance to be a hero--if she can think quickly enough to stay alive.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of this beautifully written and ingeniously plotted standalone from Herron (Nobody Walks), 26-year-old mail room employee Maggie Barnes is trying hard not to get caught late one night in her 27-story London office building. Harvey Wells, an MI5 agent, has recruited her to upload some spyware on her company's computer network from a flash drive. Adrift in the metropolis, Maggie has zero self-esteem and only the slimmest of personal ties to anyone, so this represents her chance to do something significant. Suffice it to say that her mission goes sideways. What at first appears to be a tale of spycraft and intrigue turns out to be something quite different-a disturbing portrait of contemporary England, with its "drip-drip-drip of sour resentment" (pre- and post-Brexit) and the palpable anomie of London. Most important is the fraught relationship between the pitiable Maggie and the manipulative Harvey, a man of great anger and bitterness. This dark thriller is rife with the deadpan wit and trenchant observation that Herron's readers relish. Agent: Juliet Burton, Juliet Burton Literary Agency (U.K.) (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
This Is What Happened (John Murray, £12.99) is an ingenious standalone psychological thriller from Mick Herron, award-winning writer of the superb Slough House spy series. Recently arrived in London, naive postroom worker Maggie Barnes is adrift and lonely. When she is recruited by enigmatic Harvey to work for MI5, she seizes the chance to be part of something important, but things quickly start to unravel when she is caught sneaking about her office at night, attempting to upload spyware on the companys computer network. Mind games and Herrons distinctive dark humour abound, and readers will spot that Harvey isnt what he appears to be long before Maggie does. It all serves to rachet up tension for a compelling and claustrophobic three-hander, told with admirable economy. The Blood Road (HarperCollins, £16.99) is the 11th novel in bestselling author Stuart MacBrides series featuring long-suffering Aberdeenshire policeman Logan McRae. Now working in Professional Standards and policing his fellow officers including the wonderfully scabrous Roberta Steele he becomes embroiled in the case of DI Bell, who is thought to have been dead and buried for two years when he turns up as a corpse in a crashed car. Meanwhile, young children are being abducted, and there are rumours that the twice-dead officer might have been involved in a clandestine livestock mart that caters to well-heeled paedophiles. Squeamish readers should probably look elsewhere, but the book is a tour de force, expertly balancing wisecracks with moments of genuine fist-in-mouth horror in a smartly paced and vividly pungent police procedural. Set in Glasgow in 1969, Liam McIlvanneys The Quaker (HarperCollins, £12.99) is loosely based on the murders of the real and never caught serial killer Bible John, who is believed to have raped and strangled three women after meeting them in the citys Barrowland Ballroom. DI Duncan McCormack is drafted in from the flying squad to review Glasgow CIDs failing investigation, much to the irritation of the incumbents, who have already attracted scorn from the media for their futile attempts to solve the case by mingling with the punters at the dance hall. A parallel narrative concerning safe-cracker Alex Paton, who travels home from London to take part in an auction house heist, is skilfully dovetailed as the plot thickens and McCormack gets drawn deeper into both cases. Despite some anachronisms, this is an atmospheric portrait of a dreich and seedy place in the throes of slum clearance, as well as a solidly crafted and satisfying detective story. EC Fremantles The Poison Bed (Michael Joseph, £12.99) is also based on a true story, which took place in London more than three centuries earlier. The arrest of power couple Robert and Frances Carr for the poisoning of courtier Sir Thomas Overbury set tongues wagging in 1615, not least because Carr was a favourite of James I and Frances was a scion of the aristocratic Howard family. Fremantle uses many of the facts as the bedrock for a tale of intrigue and ambition in which rival factions jockey, sometimes fatally, to cement their power bases at court. A place in the kings bed means the handsome but gormless Carr is promoted beyond his abilities and relies on the far cleverer Overbury for guidance until the pair fall out over whether he should wed Frances, whose family, desiring advancement, are seeking the annulment of her existing marriage to free her up for this more advantageous union. When Overbury refuses the position of ambassador to the court of Russia, an irate King James consigns him to the Tower of London, where he falls ill and dies in mysterious circumstances. As Robert and Frances pass the narrative baton between them it slowly becomes clear that Frances may not be the helpless pawn that she first appears Although their characterisation would have benefited from more subtlety, this is a rich and fascinating book, all the more welcome for being set in a period that tends to be neglected by writers of historical crime. Last but by no means least, theres light relief in the form of A Shot in the Dark (Raven, £12.99), the first book in Lynne Trusss projected series based on her delightful radio comedies set in 1950s Brighton. Inspector Steine is convinced that since the Middle Street Massacre of 1951, during which the towns criminals wiped themselves out while the police stopped off for ice cream, his patch has been clean as a whistle. This is despite the presence of a cast of small-timers such as Stanley-knife Stanley and Ronnie the Nerk, as well as a mysterious redhead with links to a string of burglaries; his airy dismissal of vital clues is the bane of both jaded Sergeant Brunswick and ambitious newcomer Constable Twitten, who have their work cut out when a theatre critic with lots of enemies is shot dead during the opening night of a play. With plenty of brightly coloured bucket-and-spadery, including ghost trains and Punch and Judy and variety acts, this clever, tongue-in-cheek escapade is a perfect summer read. - Laura Wilson.
Kirkus Review
The latest stand-alone from Herron couldn't be more different from his bustling, often brutally funny series about the government agents at Slough House (Spook Street, 2017, etc.). This pared-down exercise in suspense is just plain brutal."I wish this were like the films," Harvey Wells tells Maggie Barnes, the mouse he's recruited to run a delicate undercover errand for MI5. All Harvey wants Maggie to do is install an eavesdropping program in one of the computers in Quilp House, where she works in the bowels of the post office. And it's for the good of her nation and the world, since the functionaries of Quilp House, it seems, are actually working for the Chinese government. But Harvey can't offer Maggie moment-by-moment instructions or surveillance or backup; if she gets caught or anything goes wrong, she's on her own. This opening movement recalls the recruiting of the suicidal heroine of So Many Steps to Death 60 years ago, but Herron has some fantastical twists in mind that Agatha Christie never dreamed of. Something does go wrong; Maggie does get caught; and although Harvey rescues her, her life as she knows it is essentially over. To say more would spoil some of the surprises planted at regular intervals throughout the hyperextended period following Maggie's single attempt at counterespionage. Suffice it to say that Herron spins a remarkable, if often blankly incredible, tale whose dramatis personae are limited to three characters, one walk-on, and a few others dimly or harshly remembered.Given Herron's outrageous premise, the complications are managed with delicious control. Only the last act stumbles, because the climax is the only part of this story that's remotely predictable. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* A profoundly disturbing tale from CWA Gold and Steel Daggers winner Herron about an insufficiently socialized young woman who was never warned to be careful what she wished for. Twenty-six-year-old Maggie Barnes is, sadly, one of those people you would never look at twice, the kind of person who could vanish from the face of the earth without anyone taking notice. She lives a solitary, more or less hand-to-mouth existence in a London that is singularly bleak. There is an aching absence of color and texture, except for a telltale yellow scarf. Maggie believes she has been recruited for MI5 by a man she meets at a local café. Is this, at last, a chance to make her life matter? Of course not, but for someone as desperate as Maggie to find a way out of the emptiness that engulfs her, there's no choice but to grab what might be a lifeline. For the reader, the gradual realization of what is actually happening to Maggie brings to mind Miranda Grey's ordeal in John Fowles' chilling The Collector (1963). Herron's tight prose is laced with black humor, without one unnecessary word. His mastery of narrative pacing shines in a dim and stifling setting where time is being deliberately held still. Any action is slowed down by the confusion and hesitancy of the characters. Fans who miss the startling and compelling psychological suspense of Ruth Rendell will relish this unsettling tale.--Murphy, Jane Copyright 2018 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Maggie Barnes is just a down-on-her luck girl in London until she is recruited by MI5 for a special at-home assignment. A complication ensues during the mission and her contact agent decides he must hide her away until it is safe for them to move. At the same time, Maggie takes it upon herself to find her missing sister. She embarks on a relationship with the one person who she suspects knows more than he is letting on. In this succinctly written stand-alone thriller not all is how it is presented; who will survive and who won't? The CWA Gold and Dagger author (Slow Horses; Dead Lions) successfully unfolds his mystery from three different perspectives, creating an atmosphere of page-turning suspense. This use of differing views means that there is not much action; instead, Herron weaves a subtle tale that touches upon various aspects of modern life while focusing exclusively on the decisions and reactions of the main characters. VERDICT Fans of twisty espionage fiction and psychological suspense won't want to put this book down until they find out what exactly happened. [See Prepub Alert, 7/24/17.]-Laura Hiatt, Fort Collins, CO © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.