Espionage

Moscow, 1934. Moscow's glittering new subway is under construction at last. The first line will run through the centre of the city, cutting deep through Moscow soil.

But futures cannot be created without digging up the past. Though Russia's leaders want to build a glorious Soviet capital, what holds them in a fatal grip is history: old mud and bones. Anton Belkin is an Investigator at the Procuracy, a sensitive job at a dangerous moment on the road to the Show Trials.

He is also someone who needs to keep his head down. His artist father was once the darling of the revolutionary avant-garde, a painter whose work could inspire devotion and great sacrifice. But now his dreams are out of place, too loud and red in Stalin's world of sterile rules and rubber stamps.

Anton is dragged into a murder case. A prominent archaeologist, working alongside the subway dig, has been killed in a deserted mansion. Though Anton doesn't want the job, his former lover, Vika, who is now a powerful member of the secret police, browbeats him into paying a visit to the site with her.

Against his better judgement he is drawn to follow though, embarking on investigations that will almost certainly get him killed. Deep underground, he finds a priceless secret that could genuinely unlock the future but links him to a vicious internecine fight for power in the young Soviet state. In the process, he is forced to reconsider the history he shares with Vika and the bonds that bind them both.

Gabriel Dax, travel writer and accidental spy, is back in the shadows. Unable to resist the allure of his MI6 handler, Faith Green, he has returned to a life of secrets and subterfuge. Dax is sent to Guatemala under the guise of covering a tinderbox presidential election, where the ruthless decisions of the Mafia provoke pitch-black warfare in collusion with the CIA.

As political turmoil erupts, Gabriel's reluctant involvement deepens. His escape plan leads him to West Berlin, where he uncovers a chilling realization: there is a plot to assassinate magnetic young President John F. Kennedy.

In a race against time, Gabriel must navigate deceit and danger, knowing that the stakes have never been higher.

How does a secret service confront its past, when its secrets must never be revealed?

Buried deep in MI6's digital archives is the most classified directory of all. It doesn't contain war plans or agent profiles, but shame: the misdeeds of politicians, royalty, business leaders and the service's own personnel. There are seven decades' worth of images and recordings, usually acquired for the sake of assessing risk, sometimes as a guard against betrayal, often engineered by MI6 for their own purposes.

They are the most sensitive two thousand terabytes of data in the Service's possession. When material from the archive begins appearing online, panic spreads through the Establishment like wildfire. At first, the security breach only manifests itself in apparently random events: a suicide, a disappearance, a breakdown.

But when it's discovered that the individuals concerned were all contacted by the same anonymous person, a connection comes into focus. The archive has been leaked. The hunt is now of unprecedented urgency before the entire political and business systems are fatally weakened.

That's when they call for Elliot Kane...

***Signed by the author, limited stock available***

Joseph Severin, a respectable North London businessman, has a lucrative side job. He's doing the books, old school (because these days the only trail you can't trace is a paper one) for a rogue MI5 outfit, the Shadows, headed by psychopathic Sebastien. However, when the game is rumbled, Sebastien sends hitman Mr Phipps to kill Severin and get those books back.

The spider web of collateral damage will be extensive, taking in Lottie, for whom Severin has developed a sudden, wild passion; Sonya, a Russian escort with a desperate deadline; and at MI5, the ambitious Ellerby, who has them all in her sights. It's the hottest summer in fifty years and in the shadows, a deadly domino effect is about to spill out into the harsh light of day.

An earlier version of this book was published as One London Day by C.C. Humphreys, now expanded and revised 2026.

Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Nick Harkaway's Karla's Choice is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction's greatest writer, John le Carré.

It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West's spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life.

And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy. But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found.

Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Susanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But in his absence the shadows of Moscow have lengthened. Smiley will soon find himself entangled in a perilous mystery that will define the battles to come, and strike at the heart of his greatest enemy…

Special Agent Paul Chavasse is about to start a much-deserved holiday when he is abruptly pulled back to active duty. He knows that if he’s being called into action, a job has gone badly wrong – and it’s about to get a lot worse. Somewhere in Germany is hidden a manuscript that could rock Western Europe to its foundations: the testament of Martin Bormann.

As Hitler’s private secretary – and an influential member of the Third Reich – the terrible secrets Bormann carried into oblivion are about to be revealed. Many who are now in power have much to lose. With instructions to secure the manuscript at all costs, British Intelligence's toughest trouble-shooter soon discovers that he isn't the only one trying to get his hands on the book.

And his rivals will go to any lengths – any lengths – to beat him to it.