Max Janacek News Today

Book reviewer ANNA CREER writes of two thrillers that take old characters into new adventures.

Mick Herron’s latest book is about a supposedly retired academic and a government inquiry into the intelligence services.

Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service. Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any misconduct by any MI5 officer --- and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, access to all confidential information in the Service archives. Now that the administration that created Monochrome has been ousted, the investigation is a total bust --- an...