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Night Heron

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Night Heron

By: Adam Brookes
Narrated by: Jason Isaacs
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Tell them, the Night Heron is hunting . . .

A lone man escapes a labour camp in the dead of night, fleeing across the winter desert of north-west China.

Two decades earlier, he was a spy for the British. Now he finds Beijing transformed and crawling with danger - the fugitive must quickly disappear on its surveillance-blanketed streets or face death.

Desperate and ruthless, he reaches out to his one-time MI6 paymasters via journalist Philip Mangan, offering secrets in return for his life.

Mangan is dragged into a deeper and deeper whirlpool of lies, as the secrets prove more valuable than either of them could ever have known... and not only to the British.©2014 Adam Brookes Crime Fiction Espionage Spies & Politics Suspense Thriller & Suspense China Mystery Fiction Surveillance Imperial Japan
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Critic reviews

An intriguing, skilful and taut novel...elegantly plotted and with a piercing eye for detail
Debut of the month is Adam Brookes's accomplished Night Heron
Brookes arrives as a fully formed talent, with a complete mastery of the genre
Night Heron reeks with verisimilitude in its settings and atmosphere, and is accompanied by a cleverly plotted action-filled story of Anglo-Chinese espionage
The pace is frenetic and Brookes does a wonderful job with both the high-tech world of cyber intelligence and survival on Beijing's gritty, smog-smothered streets. Highly recommended.
Brookes, a correspondent for BBC News in Washington, D.C., who was formerly based in China, takes readers deep inside the culture and daily routines of that country in his outstanding fiction debut . . . Good chase scenes and tense dialogue, coupled with a convincing picture of what actually happens in the corridors of power, make Brookes a thriller writer to watch.
Brookes, a one-time China correspondent for the BBC, knows this turf exceedingly well and translates that knowledge into a novel that is as strikingly different as it is thrilling . . . One of the best and most compulsively readable spy-fiction debuts in years.
Night Heron is a fascinating portrait of the dangerous complexities of spying in a restricted country, the competing agendas driving international intelligence, and China's startlingly varied social realities. A must-read for fans of espionage and smart global fiction in general.
Engrossing and compelling
Fans of the international espionage genre will inhale this fast tale in a few suspenseful breaths. Brookes uses multiple narrators-the spy, the engineer, the journalist, the agent, the boss-whose conflicting alliances tell the real story.
Spine-tingling
All stars
Most relevant

If you could sum up Night Heron in three words, what would they be?

Bewitching Heart Racer

What did you like best about this story?

Set in an environment I knew virtually nothing about.

What about Jason Isaacs’s performance did you like?

The pace of his narration is just perfect enabling you to feel the experience of the "Heron" in all its danger.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Near the beginning when "Heron" is hiding in his cave.

Any additional comments?

I would highly recommend this book.The story is completely engrossing and original.

A Very Different Spy

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What did you like best about Night Heron? What did you like least?

There were some enthralling set-pieces (the initial escape being one of them) but by half-way through the book I still didn't care enough about any of the characters to want to find out what was going to happen next. I found all of the main characters in the story to be both non-sympathetic (not necessarily a problem by itself) and non-empathetic - I just never felt engaged in the story.

Any additional comments?

Jason Isaacs does a good job of narration, the pace is just about right and characterisations as good as they could be given the source material. It's not a bad book, just not a terribly good one either. This was my first foray into post-Le-Carre contemporary spy fiction; I am hoping there are better, more exciting and more engaging examples yet to encounter.

Failed to sustain my interest

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Would you listen to Night Heron again? Why?

Yes, I want to get my husband to listen to it so will probably do so on a long car journey. Great book

What other book might you compare Night Heron to, and why?

I think it is quite like some of the La Carre works all of which I have loved.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

Can't really bring to mind one scene which was better than the rest. the book is very well balanced.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, I never want to listen to books in 1 go.

Any additional comments?

Get it!

Wonderful tense spy drama

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Good story, moved along well.
Lots to think about. Super twist right at the end.

Night Heron

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An excellent debut novel - gripping, suspenseful with enough fact to keep it credible but enough fiction to keep it entertaining. The narration was also spot on, very well read.
It very much reminded me of an early Frederick Forsyth novel which is no bad thing.
I'd very much recommend this audiobook.

Bravo!

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