Slough House—Slough rhymes with cow—is where Britain’s MI5 sends intelligence officers it doesn’t want but won’t fire, in hope that the sheer drudgery of their assignments, combined with the dreadfulness of their boss, will lead those agents to quit. Some … Continue reading Slow Horses | Book Review
Before Slough House, there was Oxford. And behind both series of novels is Mick Herron, one of the best—if not the best—writers of mystery and espionage writers currently working. Having read my way through all eight Slough House novels, not … Continue reading Reconstruction | Book Review
Bad Actors begins and ends with beatings, apparently lethal or soon to be so. In between, it’s filled with plots, machinations, and enough back stabbings to impress Julius Caesar. Most of those are perpetrated by members of Her Majesty’s Government … Continue reading Bad Actors | Book Review
Dolphin Junction is a collection of eleven short stories by Mick Herron. Most of the stories were first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. All of them center around mysteries, ranging from blackmail (“Proof of Love,” “What We Do”) to … Continue reading Dolphin Junction | Book Review
Slough House is the seventh novel in Mick Herron’s series about a department of agents MI5 doesn’t want but can’t fire. It is also the darkest and best installment. You can read it as a stand-alone, but trust me, you’re … Continue reading Slough House | Book Review
Mick Herron’s Slough House is where MI5 deposits the spooks it wants to fire but can’t, hoping they will quit out of shame, boredom, or fear of Jackson Lamb, the unhygienic Cold Warrior who rules the place like a personal … Continue reading The Catch | Book Review
Joe Country is the eighth installment in Mick Herron’s series about a motley group of disgraced agents whom MI5 cannot fire outright, so it sends them to Slough House instead and hopes the boredom of their tasks there grinds them into … Continue reading Joe Country | Book Review
Mick Herron’s Joe Country comes out on June 11, 2019, and features the usual suspects from Slough House, where MI5 sends the incompetent agents it can’t fire outright but would like to resign. I eagerly anticipate its publication, as Herron is easily one of the best suspense writers currently in operation—and funny to boot. The events of The Marleyborne Drop, a Slough House novella, take place between London Rules and Joe Country. Solomon Dortmund, a pensioned Cold War asset, thinks he has witnessed a drop—an exchange of intelligence between an asset and her foreign handler—and informs his own semi-retired handler, John Bachelor. … Continue reading The Marleyborne Drop | Book Review
London Rules is the fifth book in Mick Herron’s acclaimed Slough House series. Slough House is where MI5 houses agents it can neither fire nor put in the field, hoping they quit of their own volition instead. And it’s governed by a profane unhygienic Cold Warrior named Jackson Lamb who keeps things running, if not altogether smoothly, and not without a bit of blackmail of the higher ups. In this installment, there are terrorists loose in England; political shenanigans involving an MP, the MP’s pundit wife, the Prime Minister, and the PM’s favorite Muslim politician. On top of that, someone’s … Continue reading London Rules | Book Review
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