This is my first read of this series featuring Wiggins, who as a child was the head of the ragtag group of street urchins who helped Sherlock Holmes. This is a blend of historical fiction with elements of historical reality set in 1910 where a febrile atmosphere abounds with fears of German and Russian spies and assassins. In London King Edward VII is dying and its a nightmare organising the security of numerous important VIP attendees to his funeral. There is bone deep poverty as workers struggle to feed their families as wages are cut and there is the emergence of women who think that more direct action is required in the suffragette movement if they are to succeed in acquiring the right to vote. The political establishment, spearheaded by Winston Churchill and the intelligence agencies are willing to put down the protests by workers and suffragettes by any means necessary, including heavy brutality that the media has been encouraged to not cover. The idiocy, prejudice and sense of entitlement within the establishment is breathtaking, believing that the rich, powerful and privileged are infinitely superior and the lower classes and women are to dismissed, demonised and perceived as enemies of the state.

Captain Vernon Kell, head of the recently established Secret Service Bureau, with only one agent, Wiggins, is facing the threat of closure from the odious head of Special Branch and others. Kell is having to respond to the pressure to find who is leaking from the establishment to the Germans, the list of possible suspects is enormous, and the more Kell looks into this, the more convinced he is that the leaks have been taking place for some time. Churchill is insisting Kell and Wiggins infiltrate workers protests to provide the intelligence to crush them. All of which leaves Kell stressed and pressurised, he only has one agent, and it leaves no time to devote to look at the network of German and Russian spies. The situation is exacerbated by Wiggins seeking personal vengeance on anarchist Peter the Painter for killing his best friend, Bill and childhood companion, Sal's daughter, Jax, wanting him to find out what happened to the disappeared Millie. Wiggins is led to the Embassy of Olifa where questionable activities are taking place and where he encounters Big Tommy, once a irregular. On top of all this, Kell's wife, Constance, is a person of interest to Special Branch for her support of the suffragettes.

I enjoyed reading this tale of espionage from HB Lyle, but it did feel rather too sprawling and the narrative could have been tightened up considerably. This would have lent the novel a more coherent and more cohesive sense to the story. I liked the character of Wiggins, challenged by so many that he knew that he was working for those whose intention was to crush them, the poor, workers, women and the vulnerable. As he sees the lack of justice when those in power commit the gravest of crimes and get away scot free, it is barely surprising that he is not keen to work for Kell any longer. However, Kell needs him, Wiggins is his best agent, if not the best agent in the country. I found this an engaging, absorbing and entertaining book. Many thanks to Hodder and Stoughton for an ARC.

Head of Britain's nascent Secret Intelligence Bureau, Vernon Kell had been tasked with uncovering a mole within the government - someone who is leaking intelligence details to the Germans.

This is the 2nd in the series featuring former Baker Street Irregular, Wiggins, Kell's best, in fact his only street agent. Wiggins has been given what he considers a "boring" job - a list of names of Government civil servants to investigate, but he has other things on his mind. He's still hunting for the infamous anarchist "Peter The Painter" who, during the course of a robbery, murdered his best friend Bill, a young London policeman. And a friend has asked him to track down Millie, a young girl who disappeared from the Embassy of Olifa which turns out to be a high class brothel. (Olifa is a fictional country mentioned in a book by one of Britain's earliest spy writers, John Buchan while of course Wiggins is a former agent for English literature's most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes).

If that weren't enough, Wiggins is also keeping a watchful eye on Kell's wife, Constance who's involved with the Suffragette movement battling for the rights of women to vote. Kell thinks he and his wife have grown apart and believes she may be seeing another man when, in fact, she is mixing with a more dangerous group of women plotting more than marches and demonstrations in support of their cause.

Kell's work is even more complicated as his Government masters demand he find the leak as soon as possible or his department will be taken over by Special Branch. Without Wiggins full support, Kell has to fall back on his own initiative and when he discovers a foolhardy plan by the Secret Service's foreign department to send 2 military men into Germany to act as spies, he knows he must intervene.

Eventually, Kell, Constance and Wiggins are forced to travel to the Hanseatic port of Bremen on the coast of Germany, to rescue Cumming, head of the foreign department and hopefully his would-be agents who Wiggins believes to be rank amateurs in the world of espionage. Kell's commanding knowledge of foreign languages paired with Wiggins' street smarts help them through some dangerous moments.

The plot of this story is labyrinthine in parts and would improve with some editing, but when the action finally gets under way, there's plenty for the spy thriller fan to enjoy.
However, the whole is a great blend of historical fact and fiction featuring famous names from politics and the security services in the first decade of the 20th Century.
As well as Kell and Cumming, Patrick Quinn, head of Britain's Special Branch waits in the wings hoping that Secret Intelligence Bureau fails, allowing him to increase the power of Britain's "secret police". Winston Churchill - the then British Home Secretary - makes an appearance demanding that Kell files reports on a wide range of "revolutionaries" who he believes are a danger to Britain. These include trade unionists and Suffragettes, which shows how reactionary Britain's upper classes were at this time and indeed continued to be for decades to come. Wiggins himself experiences how the Establishment mistreats "the lower classes". H.B. Lyle, the author, contrasts the stark difference in conditions for rich and poor in London in the years before World War I and perfectly captures the atmosphere of the era.

Although, it could do with some editing, (the various twists and turns in the plot mean you have to keep your wits about you) this is a fine spy story and I'll continue to read other books in this series.

My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advance copy of The Red Ribbon, the second novel to feature ex Baker Street Irregular turned spy, Wiggins.

It is 1910 and the recently created Secret Service is tasked with finding the mole who is leaking embarrassing secrets to the Germans. In the meantime Wiggins is still hunting the anarchist, Peter the Painter, who shot and killed his best friend Bill but in return for much needed help he agrees to hunt for Millie, a young girl who disappeared from the Embassy of Olifa.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Red Ribbon which is a complicated read with all strands of the plot interconnecting at some point, often in surprising ways. I would like to call it lighthearted as Wiggins has a cynical, sometimes amusing take on life and the decisions some of the "toffs" take are ludicrous but the descriptions of the poverty and the government's brutal response to unrest negate this as they are historical fact and cannot be disputed. These descriptions are so well done that I found them quite sickening.

The plot is quite silly in places with a tongue in cheek approach as Captain Vernon Kell, head of the domestic Secret Service, bumbles about while Wiggins does the thinking and most of the work but, coming from the lower classes, has no status or authority. The class divide is emphasised in the novel but I have no idea how realistic it is. I do, however, think that the assumption that mole must be a clerk, not "one of us" is very believable.

I have awarded The Red Ribbon 4 rather than 5 stars as I found my attention wandering by the end. It is slightly too long and gets a bit repetitive with Wiggins wondering about his place in society and Constance Kell's suffragette angst. Still it is a good read and I'm already looking forward to the next instalment so I have no hesitation in recommending it.