The title and a blurb for the next Jonas Merrick novel have appeared. A Rumour of Paradise is set for publication on 14 January 2027.
Jonas Merrick is faced with one of the biggest moments in his long and illustrious career, as he is tasked with neutralising a Russian sleeper cell that has taken root in London.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a figure from Jonas’ past flees for his life alongside his companions in the militia, from out of the Paraguayan jungle towards safety in Brazil.
Can Jonas prevent a devastating breach in British security? And can his old friend escape almost certain death?
Something I’ve been meaning to do for ages is to take a look at the 1980s hardback reprints of some of the early Gerald Seymour books.
In the late 1980s the first ten novels from Harry’s Game to At Close Quarters were in print from Fontana paperbacks and had uniform photographic covers.
The latest hardback books at that point, A Song in the Morning (1986) and At Close Quarters (1987), which were published by Collins Harvill had the same cover designs.
Some of the earlier novels then got hardback reprints with the same cover designs published around 1987 and 1988. I manged to find three of them in a bookshop at a discounted price, namely Harry’s Game, Kingfisher and The Contract.
I’m curious if any of the other books also got these hardback editions. If anyone is aware of any others please get in touch.
Just a quick note to say that the 42nd (!) novel by Gerald Seymour, and the sixth to feature Jonas Merrick, titled The Irregular, is now out in the UK in hardback.
My copy arrived in the post this morning courtesy of the kind folk at Hodder, plus I spotted a copy in my local Waterstones.
My review to follow once I find the time to read the book. (A good problem to have.)
Information has appeared online about the next Gerald Seymour novel, titled The Irregular. By my count it will be the sixth Jonas Merrick book and the 42nd novel overall.
Here’s the blurb…
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.
And here’s the cover image.
The Irregular will be published on 15 January 2026.
I just spotted a publication date of 3 July for the paperback of A Duty of Care. Which means it’s apparently out now, only three months since the hardback was published. I’ll keep an eye out for it in the wild.
The official publication date for A Duty of Care, the 41st novel by Gerald Seymour, is 1 April 2025. But there are copies out in the wild now. I spotted some in a branch of Waterstones today.
And when I arrived home I discovered my complementary copy had arrived, courtesy of Gerald Seymour and his publishers Hodder. I’ll look forward to cracking it open. Review to follow…
And we have a blurb for next year’s novel, A Duty of Care…
Jonas Merrick – a legendary intelligence analyst for MI5 – has been banished to the Post Room of Thames House. There, he is expected to pass his remaining days before inevitable retirement.
In a Russian gulag, an MI6 agent has developed an unlikely passion for a prisoner and has come up with an ingenious plan to free her. The key: a ruthless Albanian gang laundering the dirty money of the Russian elite.
Merrick, the only agent with the experience to help, is brought back once again to intercept the Albanian courier until an exchange is organised by the Russians.
But when it transpires that the courier is the heir of the criminal gang’s leader, the danger mounts, and Merrick once again finds himself in a situation spiralling towards a bloody confrontation.
Frighteningly topical and intensely plotted, Jonas Merrick – one of the great figures of modern spy fiction – returns.
