the Shame Archive: 'Puts him firmly in Mick Herron class' Daily Telegraph

A new Elliot Kane thriller from brilliant crime writer, Oliver Harris. [extract] The first message came in at 6 a.m. Rebecca Sinclair was already up, cradling a tea on the balcony, claiming her five minutes of peace before the week began. When, in the coming days, she thought back to this moment she was grateful that her phone had been on silent, that she didn't see the message immediately, and had enjoyed a last few breaths of summer before her life collapsed. 'In turn cerebral and high-octane, The Shame Archive is a flawless political thriller: gripping, smart and hugely enjoyable. The tension builds with such fervour that by the final unexpected twist, I was left with my heart in my mouth. Now finished, all that remains is to devour Harris' entire back-catalogue whilst I await the next instalment' Charlotte Philby'Captivating and horrifying at once, a completely plausible evocation of the putrid morass that is the British Establishment and its craven capitulation to Russian money - or indeed, any money. Oliver Harris is squarely in the territory of the greats: Greene and le Carré but also the modern masters, Mick Herron and Adam Brookes. There can be no higher accolade' Manda Scott'Oliver Harris is an outstanding writer' The Times'One of our finest thriller writers' Evening Standard 'Here's a novel to make the great and the good quake.... Harris writes with compassion or satirical glee, depending on which his characters deserve, and this third Kane novel puts him firmly in the Mick Herron class' Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph'Captivating and horrifying... Oliver Harris is squarely in the territory of the greats: Greene and le Carré but also the modern masters, Mick Herron and Adam Brookes. There can be no higher accolade' Manda ScottHow 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...