Deep Shelter is the middle novel of Harris's Nick Belsey trilogy. Belsey is on restricted duties. He sees a speeding BMW and gives chase, The chase ends, the BMW gets out and legs it into what Belsey knows is a blind alley down the side of Costa Coffee - and disappears.
Belsey eventually discovers an entrance to the underground network that lies beneath London, not just the Underground itself, but also the abandoned mail rail system and bunkers built during WW2 and expanded during the Cold War. Belsey decides it would be a cool idea to take his new girlfriend down there for a date. While they are down there, the date gets snatched, abducted. Ultimately Belsey gets an email. The man he chased, who calls himself Ferryman, has the girl and wants Belsey to come and find her at Site 3.
Belsey of course goes off the radar. Starts digging into the little information that exists about the subterranean network. A former spy chief is dumped, naked and dead, behind Centre Point in the middle of London - and all traces spirited away by what looks like the emergency services and isn't. Very high, very secret police departments start taking an interest in Belsey's case. His sergeant, and former lover, Kirsty Craik is also taken, first by Ferryman and then by the aforementioned hush-hush squad. Belsey is sent everywhere, from London homeless shelters to a remote village in Wiltshire as he tries to impose order on chaos.
I love stories of alt-London, secret London, the 'other' megapolis. I don't know that I have come across a better, more thought-through version than this. It is also a first rate thriller. Oliver Harris is a top writer, perhaps the top in contemporary crime fiction and bloody good in spy fiction too.
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