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The Shame Archive
On sale
4th June 2024
Price: £20
‘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 Scott
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…
‘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 Scott
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…
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Reviews
In a world where CCTV and smartphones track our every move, the only safe space for degenerate antics is probably a personal safe-room swept for bugs and cameras. An elite brothel in London's posh Belgravia seems a high-risk option. In The Shame Archive, Oliver Harris has crafted an enthralling tale about a secret repository of bad - sometimes criminal - behaviour, including at the Belgravia brothel, held deep in the bowels of MI6... Harris steadily cranks up the tension, relating Sinclair's and Kane's stories with skill and verve until they meet in an explosive climax. What really lifts the book is the seemingly authentic portrayal of the sleazy interface where Britain's venal ruling elite meets Russian dirty money
When someone on the dark web called Eclipse blackmails Rebecca Sinclair, the wife of a cabinet minister, with photographs from her past as an escort, she turns for help to Elliot Kane, a former spook... The spy with a conscience is not a new notion, yet the skill with which Oliver Harris structures and paces The Shame Archive shows he has all the tools a thriller writer needs. Highly recommended
Here's a novel to make the great and the good quake: it posits that MI6 keeps a "shame archive" of the sensitive secrets it has accumulated about our senior politicians, business leaders, and so on. Oliver Harris's regular hero, tough spook Elliot Kane, investigates when the material falls into a blackmailer's hands - as does one of the victims, a cabinet minister's wife who is determined to keep the lid on her past. 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
One of our finest thriller writers
Our Len Deighton... Harris' deceptively understated style powers a relentless thriller that deep dives into the digital battlefields where future wars will be fought
A stunner
Oliver Harris is always pure quality
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 and the surely inevitable screen adaptation, both of which can't come a moment too soon
A twisty, propulsive spy thriller
'Oliver Harris is an outstanding writer'
First class
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.