I would like to thank Netgalley and John Murray Press for an advance copy of London Rules, the fifth novel to feature Jackson Lamb and his team of MI5 misfits, the Slow Horses.

It's all go at Slough House or maybe not as the team get on with their busy work which probably won't help the Service save the nation but even they are puzzled as to why anyone except them would want to kill the obnoxious Roddy Ho, not once but twice. Still it takes their minds off not being involved in the hunt for the terrorists who shot up a Derbyshire village, killing 18. In the meantime MI5's First Desk, Claude Whelan is allowing his deputy "Lady Di" Taverner run rings round him.

I thoroughly enjoyed London Rules which had me laughing out loud in parts and marvelling at the cleverness and slapstick of the plot in others. The first and main unwritten London Rule is "cover your arse". The hows and whys of this rule form the meat of the novel but Jackson Lamb's ability to manipulate it to his own ends are breathtaking in their imagination and scope.

It would be really easy to dismiss London Rules as a figment of Mr Herron's vivid imagination but, unfortunately, much of it has the ring of if not authenticity very likely to bear some resemblance to actuality. The self interest and efforts to further it by both the spooks and politicians is staggering as they weigh up the pros and cons of every situation but very accurate if the past few years are to be believed. These are definitely not waters for the naïve. The incompetence of the Slow Horses is in stark relief to these machinations and while extremely funny the net result is the same, it all gets covered up.

London Rules is another excellent addition to a must read series so I have no hesitation in recommending it.

Opening with a terrorist atrocity claimed by ISIS, we think we're on what has become increasingly familiar fictional territory - but, ah, this is Mick Herron, so nothing is ever what it seems...

This whole series is fabulous but I think this is my favourite to date: a contemporary plot that involves terrorism, Brexit, a Nigel Farage-alike politician, a Muslim almost-mayor, the usual Machiavellian maneuverings amongst the security service apparatchiks - and Roddy Ho seems to be the target of an assassination squad.

With all the plot complexity and political astuteness of le Carré, what really makes this series so outstanding is Herron's brilliant writing and the ensemble of wonderful characters. J.K. Coe, the 'slow horse' introduced in the last book, takes more of a central role (*that* paint can scene - oh my!) and has become one of my favourites (" Shirley said, 'It's true, isn't it?' 'What is?' 'You get a lot perkier after killing someone.' ")

But Herron should win some kind of prize for Jackson Lamb who brings Dickensian characterisation slap-bang into the 21st century. No-one is sharper, snarkier, fouler, more protective or quicker that Lamb - and in this book we find out how he ended up in Slough House.

If someone had told me that a novel about terrorism, killings, death and fear could also be outrageously, genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, I'd never have believed them - but that's what Herron achieves. And he's one of the most biting, incisive political commentators writing today - another excellent entry in a must-read-now series.