This Is What Happened

By: Mick Herron

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

From CWA Gold Dagger winner Mick Herron comes a shocking, twisted novel of psychological suspense about one woman's attempt to be better than ordinary

Twenty-six-year-old Maggie Barnes is someone you would never look at twice. Living alone in a month-to-month sublet in the huge city of London, with no family but an estranged sister, no boyfriend or partner, and not much in the way of friends, Maggie is just the kind of person who could vanish from the face of the earth without anyone taking notice.

Or just the kind of person MI5 needs to infiltrate the establishment and thwart an international plot that puts all of Britain at risk.

Now one young woman has the chance to be a hero - if she can think quickly enough to stay alive.

©2018 Mick Herron (P)2018 Recorded Books

Not his best

I’m a huge fan of the author but this was a disappointment . I’ll reread a Slow Horses to forget this one

Not his best work… not even close.

The story is a twisted variant of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Wakefield, featuring a gullible woman, a megalomaniacal english as a second language instructor pretending to work for the security service (MI-5) and a long lost sister.

The only truly interesting part of the story happens at the very beginning, and the rest is of little consequence or interest.

Claustrophobic. Not among his best

An interesting experiment or exercise underlying wit but unpleasant. He is an extremely talented. It unconvincingly even so and slow paced. Certainly my least favorite of his brilliant trillers.

Not Herron’s usual characters

This is a fairly slim story, but Herron writes in his unique style, and the narrator does a lovely job

A twisty twisted tale

Very good story, shown from the viewpoint of several people. Left the aftermath unwritten but I’d rather leave it as such.