Hard Routine

Some doors can only be opened once.When a nineteen-year-old vanishes from a London estate, MI5 analyst Sarah Vaughn spots the pattern nobody else sees - the quiet signature of a patient, disciplined enemy preparing to strike. What begins as a routine missing-person case becomes the first tremor of a long-engineered attack designed to break the country from the inside.On the ground, Danny Hale, a former Regiment operator carrying ghosts he never speaks of, is dragged back into a world he thought he'd left behind. He recognises the type of man they're hunting. He's seen what happens when someone decides the weight they carry is too much - and chooses to make the world feel it instead.As the clock runs down toward the largest public gathering of the year, Sarah, Danny, and surveillance officer Kate Mercer must track a boy trained to be invisible... and the man who built him. But the closer they get, the clearer it becomes that the real target isn't the crowd.It's them.Hard Routine is a razor-edged British thriller about the cost of service, the weight of the things we carry, and the split-second choices that decide who walks away. Perfect for fans of Mark Dawson, Adam Clancy, Mick Herron, and Lee Child's darker novellas.