Paul Tallis Books In Order

Publication Order of Paul Tallis Books

The Paul Tallis series of novels is a series of novels by E.V. Seymour the detective crime and mystery thriller writer from West Bromwich, UK. Seymour’s first novel in the series was “The Last Exile”, which she first published in 2008. After moderate success with her first novel, Seymour went on to publish four more titles by 2012, in the still ongoing series. The lead character in the series of novels is Paul Tallis, a protagonist that is something of James Bond character. Tallis is an elite firearms officer that works as an off the books MI5 spook. Being compared with James Bond is quite an achievement in itself for the character and the series in general. The series is suffused with brooding political undertones and contemporary issues, while striving for an edgy and urban tone that it excellently executes. From London to Chechnya to Istanbul and New York, the series lead clashes with the surveillance state, extreme right wing groups, human traffickers, illegal immigration among many other contemporary bogeymen. Even as the Paul Tallis series of novels generally employ a well-trodden path in its style, Seymour does a good job making it almost impossible to predict any of its revelations. The author also makes use of a variety of pop culture ephemera and TV programs that are very edgy and modern, which makes for quite some engrossing reads.

Paul Tallis the lead protagonist in the series is an MI5 unofficial agent who works off the books. Even as he works off the books, his MI5 boss often calls on him to undertake job that require competent and experienced operatives. Nonetheless, the boss is unapologetic when asked what would happen to Tallis should there be trouble – insinuating that he would be left to his own devices. He would get all the occasional backup and assistance that he needs, but would be on his own if things started getting hot. Even though Tallis hates the arrangement, he accepts the situation given his background. He has never been one for the clocking in the 8 to 5, and besides, he is very effective in intelligence work. For some people in the intelligence community, he is a pariah who lacks the decency to do the honorable thing and disappear, while for some, he is the scapegoat that refused to die. Before he got the MI5 job, he had been with the Birmingham police department as a firearms expert. He would go into any sticky situation, and typically, it was his job to take out any of the bad guys in those situations. Even as he had never considered his shooting his gun as the first option, he is an instinctive police office who always had his gun at hand, with a healthy me-or-him suspect apprehension.

At the start of the series, Paul is introduced as an ex member of the Straffordshire Regiment and the Birmingham Police, whom he had joined when he was 16 before he left eight years later. He had been brought up in an extremely harsh home where his father had never said anything good about Tallis, preferring to shower all encouragement and adulation on his older brother Dan. Given the strict discipline he had experienced at home he found it very easy to fit in the police department that had elements of the same. But his discipline was the basis of his fall from grace, as he would obey a command for his superior to kill a female terrorist that intelligence said planned to kill a lot of innocents. It turns out that the woman he killed was not a terrorist as the intelligence his superiors had was wrong. When the inevitable shakeup comes, he finds himself out in the cold, fired for his role in the scandal. Nonetheless, his firing comes as a blessing in disguise as given his experience and lack of intelligence ties, he is very compliant making him very desirable for the MI5. Even though the offer from MI5 to work off the books never replaced all that he had in his former life, he makes the most of it. Working alone, Tallis has no one to share his successes, anxieties, and thoughts with, but loves the action that takes him across the world tracking down criminals and terrorists across Europe, the Middle East. In intricate whodunit narrative, he works deep undercover in intriguing cases full of adventure and danger.

“The Last Exile” is the first novel in the Paul Tallis series of novel by E.V. Seymour. Intelligence officer had shot an innocent woman that faulty intelligence had said was a suspect in a Birmingham shopping center terror plot. With his conscience in tatters and his career well and truly over, he is living in disillusionment after he is fired from the elite firearms unit. He gets a lifeline and escape from his drab life, when an MI5 agent approaches him with an offer to track down four illegal immigrants accidentally let out of jail. He was to hand them over to the authorities after apprehending them. At first, his work runs smoothly as he tracks down all the fugitives only to make the ugly discovery that makes him believe that somebody may be setting him up as a fall guy in the arrest of an innocent exile. Building up to a dramatic climax, the novel has the intriguing investigations on who are the bad and good guys, and the usual whirlpool of double crosses and big reveal at the very end.

“The Mephisto Threat”, the second novel in the Paul Tallis series sees crime journalist Gary Morello executed in cold blood. The murdered journalist had been a big friend of Tallis, and had been due to meet him moments before he met his death. He had claimed to have information about organized crime and international terrorism that implicated very important people back home. Now running from the Turkish authorities that want to pin the murder on him, he travels back to London to hand over the intelligence to his contact at the MI5. He is soon sent on an undercover mission to Birmingham where he is to infiltrate crime boss Johnny Kennedy’s inner circle. Being the expert undercover agent that he is, he gets in. But the task gets even more complicated, as he now has to determine who to watch between his MI5 paymasters, and the charismatic gangster suspected of planning one of the most intricate terror plots against the UK.