Inspired by an actual attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 - often called the first modern terrorist act - this chillingly prophetic novel is the literary precursor to the espionage thrillers of such writers as Graham Greene and John le Carr . The Secret Agent offers a devastating portrait of late 19th-century London, with its fatuous civil servants, amoral politicians and corrupt police, who are mirrored by their counterparts in the criminal underworld.
