The Secret Hours

“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 highly classified operation in 1994 Berlin-an operation that ended in tragedy and scandal, whose cover-up has rewritten thirty years of Service history.”–