[spoilers] Harry's Diary

[JHyde]

OK, now I'm just really hungry but I'll have a go at discussing it anyway.

I really do love this book. It provides wonderful backstory to so much of Harry's life after entering MI5, and it's fascinating to see how he viewed certain events as they happened, particularly the coal miners' strike and the Iranian hostage crisis. The moments involving his family, particularly in 1996, are very moving and I love how he took Catherine to Berlin in '89. That's a very Harry thing to do, I think, especially because as we now know, he must have been in the process of creating Sugarhorse around that time. It's also very sad reading about how they had to deal with Helen's family.

I do think the ghostwriter slips in and out of character a little, especially in the book's latter third. (I actually suspect it was written by two people.) There are some more snobby remarks made that aren't really in keeping with Harry, and sometimes he comes across as more condescending than the Harry we know - such as describing Ruth's "quick *little" wit" and Catherine as a "silly, little girl", neither of which really merited that. Harry rarely condescends and when he does it's not usually to members of his team.

There are some glaring problems with continuity. It's a significant error that the "We never resign, let's make that a deal between us, OK?" is attributed to Juliet, not Harry. Juliet would never do anything so magnanimous, and I always thought it was typical of how Harry looks out for people who should have his back but don't....look at how Juliet hung him out to dry just months later. There are others, mainly timeline related, but they niggle at me.

I agree that there is a problem with how they do the timing at the end of the book with Catherine. There is no way Harry was absent from MI5 for at least 3 months immediately after Ruth's exile, not least because the "Ruth Evershed affair" is still current enough for Neil to use it in silencing Sally's fears (in 5.6). Plus if you look at the entry for the 7th August 2006, he definitely didn't identify Ruth on a different day from when she left the country. (It's also a bit weird that Harry enters two narratives on the 6th and 7th - how did he write his diary in prison? He would have just written the one entry and talked about yesterday.) So that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth as it's poor editing, and especially because so much of the book is really great.

I also found it strange that Ros wasn't even mentioned until that last story, and that his encounter with Ruth in the hotel's hallway in 5.4 wasn't mentioned. Maybe they ran out of steam in the seaason 5 stories.....it's possible that the book was basically written until the season 5 scripts or storylines were handed over so that we heard how the H+R story "ended". At least until season 8. I think it quite possible they weren't actually working from the script, but simply from writers' meetings or markups, which would explain the problems in continuity.

I really did like the addition of the Catherine storyline, it just didn't fit timewise. It felt a bit tacked on. I did like how Juliet and Catherine were woven into the book all the way through, and it's interesting how Harry still considers Jane a member of his family in 2004/2005 when the 3.3 episode is talked about. (He also does the same thing in 7.7.)

Given my on adventures at the moment, one of my favourite stories is the organization and execution of the bucks weekend for Archie, which is truly hilarious. Possibly my favourite part of the book.

I don't know what the other books are like that Kudos has published, but I really did enjoy this one. I am curious to know who did the legwork, and if I ever talk to any of the major writers on the show, I will try and find out.