Reading for pleasure: November 2023

M K Hill (Head of Zeus: £20; e-book £0.99)

This book opens with an explosive fight in an upmarket London restaurant. Elsa Zero is with her fiancé who, after receiving a brief phone call, comes back with the intention of killing her. There then follows a cat and mouse chase as every foreign and domestic intelligence service travels to London to trace her. Zero has two children, whom she eventually leaves with her reclusive parents. In an unremitting narrative, Zero ducks and dives everything which is, literally, thrown at her. Switching from a previous operation with Red Queen in Buenos Aires, to modern day Britain, this riveting book follows Zero and those who seek to capture her. Zero’s importance and the concern shared by the intelligence agencies is slowly developed until an even faster paced denouement. Strap yourself in for a rollercoaster ride.

Mick Herron (Baskerville: £22; e-book £12.99)

This standalone novel by the author of the Slough House, Slow Horses series of books billows between the present day and Berlin just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Aspects of the administration of MI5 are to set to be outsourced. Taverner, First Desk, is, understandably resistant to an external agency having access to data. An inquiry has been set up to find some “dirt” on the operations within MI5, except the inquiry is neutered. That is, until a file lands unexpectedly in the shopping basket of the sub-chair. This leads back to Berlin as the inquiry begins to interview a former operative in the outpost there. We get to see David Cartwright in his prime and the manipulation within the wider service. We also get a glimpse of the spy trade within Berlin at a pivotal moment of history. Outstanding.