The secret agent - Joseph Conrad

They swarmed numerous like locusts, industrious like ants, thoughtless like a natural force, pushing on blind and orderly and absorbed, impervious to sentiment, to logic — to terror, too, perhaps.

Considered one of Conrad’s most political works, The Secret Agent is set against the dismal backdrop of a drab and alienating Dickensian London, and tells the story of the bombing of Greenwich Observatory by a group of anarchists in the late 19th century. Shopkeeper, spy and reluctant anarchist Mr Verloc becomes embroiled in this terrorist plot, exploiting his mentally disabled brother-in-law Stevie in the process and alienating his wife, Winnie, leading to tragic circumstances.