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    This Is What Happened
    This Is What Happened
    This Is What Happened
    Audiobook7 hours

    This Is What Happened

    Written by Mick Herron

    Narrated by Steven Crossley

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 23, 2018
    ISBN9781501979545
    This Is What Happened

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    Reviews for This Is What Happened

    3.5/5

    67 ratings10 reviews

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    • 1/5
      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
    • 5/5
      Always exciting to find a new author. This is my 1st from this author but WOW. I hate to talk about the plot because I don't want to give away ANY of the secrets, but starts nice and warm, and you acclimate and suddenly startle as you realize the water around you is BOILING. Excellent novel!
    • 5/5
      When I started this book, my initial response was disappointment that it wasn't like the Slough House series (I am so attached to those characters and the style of writing - and really - the dark humor). However, once I let that go, I couldn't stop turning the pages - more along the lines of Gone Girl.
    • 4/5
      I liked this short novelSet in present day London, Maggie Barnes is tricked into being a low level spy for the company she works for. She is recruited by a man named Harvey who says he works for MI5. Harvey says the Chinese are trying to take over Britain. She thinks she accidently kills a Security guard, Harvey agrees to look after her takes her to a safe house. Maggie is a bit of a loner and very gullible to be taking in by Harvey's lies but he is convincing. She stays hidden in a basement flat that Harvey owns. (His Mother died left the whole building to him) Harvey's real name is Dickon Broom he falls for a lady called Sue, he really likes her he tells her some stories. Sue is actually called Meredith who is Maggies Sister and wants to rescue her.Spoiler alert Meredith confronts Harvey/Dickon he attacks her but she manages to free Maggie from the Basement. Harvey/Dickon is pushed down the stairs and dies. OK good book this.
    • 3/5
      Maggie Barnes is a naive mail clerk stuck in a monotonous position. However, this changes when a stranger named Harvey approaches her in a coffee shop and begins a conversation. He tells her that her company is actually a shell company for the Chinese government hoping to collapse Great Britain economy. He states that he is an agent from the English spy agency, MI5, and needs her assistance in downloading computer data to expose this nefarious plot. Although successful in the task, she caught by security before she can exit the building. While the security guard is temporarily out of the locked room, Maggie hides the thumb drive. When he returns, Maggie throws a fire extinguisher at him and escapes in a car driven by Harvey.Taken to a safe home, Maggie later learns from Harvey that the security guard that she threw the extinguisher at fell down some stairs and was killed. Maggie is now wanted for murder. Although initially promised support from MI5, Harvey told her that she has been disavowed by the agency. Additionally, China's plot has been successfully implemented and the financial collapse has resulted in a governmental takeover by China, who are using the entire weight of the government to find Maggie. One excursion into the world scared Maggie so much that she has refused to do so again...for two years.Harvey is surprised that no one has attempted to look for Maggie. Unknown to him, Maggie's sister is on the trail.I had initially had a difficult time getting into this novel. I thought about dropping it for the first 100 pages; however, finally pieces began to fall together and finished it. Like many psychological suspense novels, this one has an unique twist. I like Maggie's sister much better than Maggie, who I believed to be one of the most ignorant major characters I have encountered!
    • 3/5
      Seemingly inspired by the Hendy-Freegard case, with a touch of John Fowles' The Collector. Quite an uneasy read. Efficiently done but i missed the humour of the Slough House series.
    • 4/5
      I first encountered Mick Herron’s books last year when I picked up a copy of Slow Horses, the first of the Jackson Lamb novels, entirely by chance. I was hooked immediately, and have since read the whole of that series, and, in fact, have already re-read Slow Horses.This short novel is not part of that series, but it displays all the versatility that has become Herron’s trademark. The reader is pitched straight into the action, with Maggie Barnes engaged on a secret operation for MI5 within a large office building at the heart of London’s financial centre. Maggie is not an MI5 officer but has been recruited as ah agent by Harvey Wells, who has instructed her as to what she has to do, and why. At first everything goes according to plan, but, this being a Mick Herron book, it is not a matter of whether, but simply of when it will all start to go wrong.The plot is extremely cleverly constructed – I won’t say any more about it, for fear of inadvertent spoilers. The book is perhaps more reminiscent of Herron’s novels featuring private detective Zoe Boehm, rather than the Jackson Lamb series. There are some moments of humours, and some wry observations, but nothing to provoke the guffaws that so often attend reading about Jackson Lamb’s latest outrage. While more conventional than Lamb, the characters are all plausible, and complement each other very well.All in all, a very enjoyable book, and one that will help stave off the pangs as we wait for the next outing for the ghastly Lamb.
    • 3/5
      I'm not even sure what to say about this book. to me it's not a thriller in any way shape or form. It's very screwy and honestly hard to follow at times. I did manage to get through it tho and the ending left to many things open ended. would I recommend this book...no not a chance.
    • 5/5
      I've become a big fan of Mick Herron's writing, mostly due to the Oxford and Slough House series. His latest standalone novel, 'This is What Happened', is a microcosm of his work: great writing, concise length, excellent characters, and a taut plot. I won't go into the story line at all due to the spoilage risk, but suffice to say it's an interesting spy story, that really isn't a spy story, based on people posing to be who they aren't. You need to read the book to find out what that means.....
    • 4/5
      It's very hard to write about this novel without revealing spoilers. I thought the first part, where Maggie is secretly inserting a flash drive in a computer, was the best bit. After that I nearly stopped reading as I thought I was about to enter a genre of fiction I do not read. Persisting, it was intriguing for a while, but ultimately disappointing - less devious than I know Mick Herron can be. It was also heavily reliant on Maggie being SPOILERextraordinarily gullible.Not as good as the (excellent) Spook Street series..