The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy

Book excerpt: 'Irresistible' Guardian 'Impressive' Daily Mail 'Captivating' Mick Herron Nominated for the 2018 Best First Novel, Barry Award London 1909 Captain Kell of the War Office knows the Empire is under threat - from Russia and Germany, from terrorists and anarchists, spies and infiltrators. But he can't prove it to his superiors. He needs an agent he can trust, someone who knows the street, not the playing fields of Eton. Kell needs Wiggins. Trained as a child by Kell's old friend Sherlock Holmes, who used to call his little band of urchins the Baker Street Irregulars, Wiggins is now an ex soldier with an expert line in deduction and the cunning of a bare-knuckle fighter. But he has no wish to be recruited - until he sees a route to taking his sworn revenge on the killer of his best friend.