This is What Happened is advertised as a psychological thriller. It is not. The characters live sad lives. The book built up a little ending and just ended. It was as though the author got bored and stopped writing this book. Three and a half stars were given in this review which is probably too many. ( )

It's almost impossible to comment on this book without spoilers. I found the beginning a bit slow before realizing my lack of attention nearly caused me to miss some key plot information. Maggie left her sister and abusive boyfriend and moved to London to work in the mail room of a large office building. She was approached by an MI5 agent, Harvey, who offered her the chance to become an agent. All she had to do was install a flash drive containing a surveillance system in a top-floor office computer. It is during this operation where the reader meets Maggie at the beginning of the book.

The plot seems familiar, it must have been used before. Without doubt, Herron does it well here, combining espionage, mystery, horror and even some evil wit - after all, this is Herron. I could see where it was going from early on, but that was fine, I was happy to go along for the ride. It doesn't reach Slow Horses excellence, but he hooked this reader. ( )

This is a stand-alone from Mick Herron of Slow Horses fame.

Maggie lives alone in London with no friends. Her only family is a sister she hasn't seen in years. She's in a dead-end job in the mailroom of a large corporation, going nowhere fast. Then she meets a mysterious stranger, who within a few meetings tells her he is with MI5, and he has chosen her specifically for a job for her country, Maggie is told that the multi-national company she works for is actually owned by the Chinese, and since as a mailroom clerk she has access to all floors, she would be perfect in placing "bugs" etc. The next thing we know, Maggie is a spy! .....She thinks.

This actually isn't a spy novel however. It's more of a psychological thriller book, although it's not much of a thriller. I would not have minded that very much, but what bothered me is the suspension of disbelief required to accept that anyone could be as stupid as Maggie appears to be after her "spy" foray goes wrong. It just did not make sense to be that Maggie would remain so clueless for so long and just accept what she was told about the restricted life she had to lead.

That being said, I kept reading, because the book is after all written by Mick Herron, and the writing is very good. The witticisms did abound, despite my nagging annoyance at the unbelievable setup.

I don't particularly recommend the book though. There are much better books by Mick Herron out there. If you haven't read the Slow Horses book, get going!

2 stars ( )

Ugh! Reading this with like watching a bad movie.
The writing was ok; the story unoriginal.
I find it hard to believe the same author wrote this as the Slough House series ( )

Ugh! Reading this with like watching a bad movie.
The writing was ok; the story unoriginal.
I find it hard to believe the same author wrote this as the Slough House series ( )