INTERNATIONAL MYSTERY
Henning Mankell, although he did not invent “world noir,” demolished the walls between English-language mystery/detective fiction and the rest of the world using the same structure to investigate just about anything dealing with the home society, truth, justice, betrayal — all the great fictional territory. Here we offer a canvas of what we carry from international writers who write mysteries, noir, cozies, historical detectives, and other gems that fit in the wide and glorious category of Mystery. Travel the world!
[Note: Georges Simenon’s works, including all the Maigret mysteries, have moved to a separate page dedicated to their author. Follow the trail!]
The Secret Hours
The Secret Hours
A gripping standalone spy thriller from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Slow Horses, with a riveting reveal about a disastrous MI5 mission in Cold War Berlin—an absolute must-read for Slough House fans.
New from the author of Slow Horses, now an Apple Original series from Apple TV+, starring Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, an auditing of the British Secret Service “to investigate historical over-reaching.” Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so.
But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has succeeded thwarting the inquiry at every turn. Now the administration that brought Monochrome into being has been ousted, the investigation is a total bust—and Griselda and Malcolm are stuck watching as their career prospects swirl down the drain in the pounding London rain.
Until the eve of Monochrome’s shuttering, when an MI5 case file appears without explanation. It is the buried history of a classified operation in 1994 Berlin—an operation that ended in tragedy and scandal, whose cover-up has rewritten thirty years of Service history.
The Secret Hours is a dazzling entry point into Mick Herron’s body of work, a standalone spy thriller that is at once unnerving, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny. It is also the breathtaking secret history that Slough House fans have been waiting for.