The Irregular
On sale
15th January 2026
Price: £22
Genre
The Metropolitan Police have an unsolvable problem: ‘Lachy’ Wilson is a ruthless and obscenely rich British drugs lord who has bought off dozens of their officers. Thanks to these informants, no one can lay a glove on Wilson and he is considered ‘untouchable’.
Wilson is dreaming of one last, game-changing shipment of heroin into the UK. The Met turn to the outside for help. Jonas Merrick is an MI5 officer, unspectacular in his own right but spectacular in the success he’s had in dangerous counter terrorist operations. Can he thwart the drugs plot?
Jonas has an ace in the hole: Kenny ‘Chopper’ Harris is an ex-paratrooper and soon to be ex-member of the Flying Squad, looking for a new home, new loyalties. Jonas recruits him to get close to Wilson’s Achilles’s heel: Julie Wilson is the heir apparent to the family drugs empire and Lachy’s go-between. Julie, like Chopper, is a lost soul – she dreams of life outside her father’s brutal orbit. Her fate is about to change at their first meeting. A bond is formed, a resolution is made: Chopper will get her free of her family, if she’ll betray her mission.
Soon their desperate game of deception begins – a game which will inevitably end in a bloody denouement.
Wilson is dreaming of one last, game-changing shipment of heroin into the UK. The Met turn to the outside for help. Jonas Merrick is an MI5 officer, unspectacular in his own right but spectacular in the success he’s had in dangerous counter terrorist operations. Can he thwart the drugs plot?
Jonas has an ace in the hole: Kenny ‘Chopper’ Harris is an ex-paratrooper and soon to be ex-member of the Flying Squad, looking for a new home, new loyalties. Jonas recruits him to get close to Wilson’s Achilles’s heel: Julie Wilson is the heir apparent to the family drugs empire and Lachy’s go-between. Julie, like Chopper, is a lost soul – she dreams of life outside her father’s brutal orbit. Her fate is about to change at their first meeting. A bond is formed, a resolution is made: Chopper will get her free of her family, if she’ll betray her mission.
Soon their desperate game of deception begins – a game which will inevitably end in a bloody denouement.
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Reviews
PRAISE FOR GERALD SEYMOUR
Gerald Seymour has created the most memorable hero of his long career
You don't read Gerald Seymour, you commit to it totally. His stories have amazing detail, yet you still fly through them
There are strong echoes of George Smiley in Merrick's mild and unprepossessing manner, which disguises a razor-sharp brain and considerable courage when necessary
Seymour's finger is always on the current socio-political pulse
[Charles] Cumming is perhaps matched only by Gerald Seymour now when it comes to recounting field operations
[Seymour] has lost none of his talent for thrilling plots and creating credible and sympathetic characters, nor his journalist's eye for modern espionage tradecraft and techniques
Supreme spy writer
Jonas Merrick has been among the best thriller creations of the past decade . . . [Seymour's] insights into the world of crime and intelligence remain as compelling as ever, as do the staccato stabs of his prose'
