Slough House полностью

READERS MAY NOTICE IN Slough House echoes of events in Wiltshire between March and July 2018, when four people were poisoned, one fatally, by the nerve agent Novichok. They should be aware, however, that this novel is pure fiction. Various details have been radically altered; none are intended to be accurate.

It might be worth adding that the novel was completed in March 2020, a week or so before the UK went into lockdown. Hence the absence from its pages of social distancing, face masks, workouts with Joe Wicks, and other aspects of actual life in the summer that followed.

My heartfelt gratitude, as ever, to all at John Murray and Soho Press for their unstinting efforts on my behalf; to Juliet Burton and Micheline Steinberg for their constant vigilance; to friends and fellow authors for companionship and support; to booksellers and librarians for lighting candles in the dark; and to readers, for making it all worthwhile. Special thanks to Mark Richards, for the huge difference he made to my career, and for leaving me in such good hands.

MH

Oxford

August 2020