An Interview with Mick Herron

Longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2024, Mick Herron, joins Harrogate International Festivals and host Joe Haddow, to talk about his book, The Secret Hours.  

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?

A little more about the author…

Kicking off with 2010’s Slow Horses, Mick Herron’s Slough House series has lit a match under the British spy genre. With its world-wary coterie of misfits and starring the cunning Jackson Lamb, Herron is now at the front rank of espionage fiction and considered by many to be the true spiritual successor to Len Deighton.