This is a good debut novel it is a very good crime novel I like the characters and the story was entertaining and engaging. However, there were many characters, and this became confusing at times.

really enjoyed parts of this book,I liked the main character of Gary and found some of the information given via the book re Russia and its relationship with present day London fascinating,the actual story was quite good as well and kept me intrigued, if ever you were tempted to talk to someone on a train journey this will make you think twice 😎,the author uses his work career knowledge to it’s full but I did struggle with so many characters and their Russian names ((my problem not the books) and trying to recall who was who and what their role was,there is a helpful character reference page at the start of the book which helped,a bit!
The author though obviously has a great talent for writing and am looking forward to his next book (already on my TBR pile )

There are very mixed reviews of this book that I have read. These mainly concern the writing style, that it is simplistic and formulaic, and it is but it does not claim to be high literature. The plot is interesting shows a great deal of insider knowledge, the set pieces are suitably exciting. I can forgive the clunkiness of the style as, essentially, this is a piece of populist mass-market writing and is more than adequate in that respect

This was quite good fun, if somewhat predictable, and well written. There were, however, some moments where you struggled to suspend your disbelief.

Really enjoyed this story. Easily got into the book and would love to read more from the author. Thank you for the opportunity to see an advance copy.

Sadly this books just wasn't for me. It felt quite slow and dull and if I'm honest I'm a bit fed up of the whole Russian mafia trope.

The author has a way with words and this book is very well written. Humour was entwined throughout the book and this was done well.

The ending wasn't what I was expecting. It felt a little rushed. All of a sudden it was a race to tell the reader everything that had happened and why it had happened.

Wow! What a brilliant debut from former Home Secretary Alan Johnson.
This book felt like an old-fashioned spy thriller but at the same time was bang up to date with its London setting, Russian football club owners and the Russian gangs running the ‘underworld’.
This is an immersive crime thriller, it is a perfect book to be read either on a deckchair in the sun, or under a cosy blanket with a hot beverage.
Gary Nelson is just another commuter who, after wanting to befriend a fellow commuter is unwittingly thrown into a dangerous world that he has no experience or understanding of. Thence forth the storyline, which is so well written becomes a tale of espionage, plots, threats and as you turn the pages of this immersive thriller, you are not sure of what to expect next. Just as I thought I knew what was coming, yet another twist pushes all my theories
I highly recommend this book, just clear your diary and make no plans as this book draws you in and is one of those ‘just one more chapter’ books that will keep you reading late into the night.
I am really looking forward to Alan’s next book.
Thank you to Netgalley and Wildfire, Headline Publishing for an e ARC of The Last Train to Gypsy Hill in return for an honest review.

What a heart racing read! So much drama and suspense. I loved the premise of this. Two people on a commute with the woman doing her make up. Very fast paced action. Absolutely loved this book!

Alan Johnson’s thoroughly compelling fiction debut has the feel of a good old-fashioned spy thriller, but there is never any doubt that the setting is firmly contemporary with London the jurisdiction of choice for Russian criminal gangs laundering money and acting with impunity. That Johnson was in the cabinet when Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006 after speaking critically about the Russian government ensures that the plot feels entirely plausible. Think The Thirty-Nine Steps, set in the present day and written with just as much brio as the original and it gives an idea of what a fun and incredibly satisfying ride this book is.

When Gary Nelson moved to London three years earlier from the Aylesbury council house he shared with his mum he imagined it would be the start of a bigger, more exciting life. Working in a dull job in the Accounts Payable department of a newspaper, renting a room in a shared house in Crystal Palace and rarely getting beyond a first date, it’s not quite panned out as he hoped. However his morning commute is enlivened by the presence of a stunning blonde whose ritual application of make-up he watches in silent admiration every day. Too tongue-tied to strike up a conversation with her, Gary can’t believe it when on a late train home from work she greets him like an old friend, cosies up beside him and pulls a compact mirror out of her bag with ‘HELP ME’ scrawled across it in mascara.

The novel opens with a clandestine meeting between a noted Russian documentary maker and two compatriots discussing a CNN commissioned film about the suppression of political opposition in Russian. It was at this meeting that harassed Arina Kaplin, ‘Gary’s girl’, was employed as a waitress at the Strand Hotel and served a cup of tea laced with Polonium-210 which the filmmaker subsequently died from. As an illegal immigrant from Ukraine, Arina is reluctant to trust the Met and has two agents from the FSB (Putin’s version of the KGB) on her tail and when quick thinking Gary whisks her off the train at Gipsy Hill it is the start of a chain of events that puts the pair of them on the wanted list of the police, MI6, the FSB and the sinister Krovnyye Bratya (‘Blood Brothers’). The reader knows this part of Arina’s story but Gary doesn’t, however he is about to begin the most exciting and terrifying two weeks of his life as he finds out there is far more to his rush hour crush than meets the eye.

The main focus of the story follows Gary and Arina on the run with several other threads following the conflicted Russian contingent (whom Johnson does a stellar job of differentiating between) and the Met. All in all, it’s a rollicking good yarn that rattles along with pace, plenty of humour and an unlikely hero who is completely out of his depth and impossible not to vie for in Gary.

This ia an interesting book with several plots working together and merging to bring the story to a conclusion.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Worthy of a read

Alan Johnson's novel The Late Train to Gipsy Hill is a well-plotted début spy thriller. Gary Nelson lives in London and has a fairly uneventful life, including a regular commute to his job in the City. He has noticed a woman who travels on the same train as he does and likes to watch her. Her name is Arina and one evening she invites him to sit by her and then holds up her mirror to him and Gary sees that she has written 'HELP ME' in black make-up on it...

This is an enthralling, clever and compulsively readable tale of espionage. Full of intrigue corruption, melodrama, double-crossing, and political shenanigans, Alan Johnson's writing is warm, humorous and satisfying. An extremely enjoyable tale that starts off steadily then builds into an extremely exhilarating work of fiction. I thoroughly recommend picking this up. Highly recommended. by this contented reader.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Headline, Wildfire via NetGalley and this review is my unbiased opinion.

A very interesting story with well-formed characters that you could get to empathize with. Gary a young man is the cosseted son of an unmarried single parent mother. He leaves home to find a more exciting life in London. instead of which he ends up with a boring job living in a house shared with two men and young lady who mostly ignore him. Every day commuting to work on the train he becomes fascinated by a young lady applying her make up, enamoured, he is too timid to approach her and misses her when she no longer appears. One day working late he sees her again on the train and to his surprise secretly asks him for help to escape from two nearby tough looking men. What follows is an exciting story of murder that the girl was a witness to, involving rival Russianl gangs and the police who all want to find her for different reasons. They go on the run together and Gary in the company of the young woman who even has a gun to defend themselves is imspired into a caring courageous young man. How things are resolved makes an engrossing story. In the end they have to part and return to their normal lives, but when Gary gets a letter from Kief, the reader is left wondering what happens next.

I love a good contemporary espionage story and this one ticked all the right boxes - Russian oligarchs, corrupted police, poison, an unlikely hero and a mysterious woman on the run. A really impressive and brilliantly written debut, full of intrigue & double crossing.

This was a slow burn but got interesting, it was very well researched and it flowed really well.

It was an interesting read.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review was entirely my own.

Sadly this was a DNF for me. I was really looking forward to reading it but I just couldn't get into this book at all.

Well plotted debut spy thriller from Alan Johnson. Everyday on his boring daily commute, Gary Nelson is beguiled by watching a woman put on her make-up. He never dares to approach her until on day she signals for his help... Gary is drawn into the world of espionage, the FBI. the Russian Mafia and the Met Police. Reminding me of previous poisonings and the Salisbury case, Gary is drawn into a very strange world. At times I found the Russian names difficult to keep track of but there is good pace and plenty of twists and turns.

Unfortunately I struggled through this book and felt like giving up at times. The blurb of the book sounded great and it was going to be a great read but I found there was too many characters. Because of this I found it hard to keep up with who everyone was which for me took away from the enjoyment of the book. 2.5⭐️

The Late Train to Gipsy Hill, the debut spy thriller from former Home Secretary Alan Johnson, is a gripping slice of contemporary espionage that takes in shadowy conspiracy, the Russian mafia and a beautiful woman on a train who may not be all that she seems. Gary Nelson has a pretty uneventful life, even if he does live in London. He's a quiet, sad guy who hardly strikes you as the hero type and who moved to the city for a more adventurous life but now feels stuck in a dead-end job. That life gets turned on its head when, on his commute home, he has a chance encounter with Arina, a woman who he has noticed on the train each day and has become transfixed with but never spoken to. There is so much more to young, blonde-haired Arina than meets the eye. She is presently on the run after making a terrible mistake. Then one evening, on the late train to Gipsy Hill in the Borough of Lambeth, London, the woman who has beguiled him for so long and that he’s been too shy to approach holds up a mirror bearing the message “HELP ME” scrawled in mascara; when Gary does finally speak to her it sparks a chain of events that leads to him finding himself in hair-raising encounters with Russian secret agents, mobsters and even the Metropolitan Police as a terrifying cat and mouse game ensues.

This is an exciting, enthralling and compulsively readable work of espionage in which Johnson cleverly plays on our current fears of the Russian state including political interference, the omnipresent oligarchs wielding their wealth and power over British interests, and the attempted political assassinations of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, with nerve agent, Novichok, in Salisbury in 2018. It is clear his inspiration for the story comes from the Litvinenko poisonings and the enigmatic death during the novel involving the Russian mafia, the mob and the Metropolitan Police - are all scenarios which would have crossed his desk as Home Secretary in 2009. It's a fast-paced, warm-hearted story and a gripping slice of contemporary spy fiction that begins unremarkably and builds the tension until a full-blown, shadowy Russian conspiracy is underway. An elegant, charmingly written and exhilarating read from the moment you crack it open, it immerses you in the murky world of the intelligence agencies and their cloak and dagger movements involving melodramatic intrigue and action and featuring secret agents and the spying game. Impressive, authentic and intricately plotted with many twists in the tale and even a touch of self-deprecating humour, I thoroughly recommend picking this up. Highly recommended.

The Late Train to Gipsy Hill is a wonderful, fast-paced political spy thriller set in Contemporary London. The main character Gary is a regular everyday commuter until one day everything changes. With echoes of the Salisbury Poisonings and the Litvinenko poisoning the author draws you into a dark world of foreign spies and espionage.

This former MP Alan Johnson’s debut fiction novel and does not disappoint - I look forward to reading more of his work.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Gary Nelson livens up his commute to his dull job by watching the girl put on her makeup. He doesn't have the nerve to speak to her.

But one evening, she indicates that she wants him to sit next to her.

And that's when the trouble starts...