I'm sorry to say that I didn't actually finish this book, not my kind of read, I found the storyline difficult to follow and the whole book lacked pace

The only bad thing about this book is it's only a novella. Please don't taunt us with anything less than the full Slough House, Mr. Herron.

Rapidly taking over as the leading spy fiction writer of the day, Mick Herron serves up a novella which acts as a lead in to the forthcoming novel Joe Country, not least introducing the new recruit to Slough House. Pulling together strands of the old school tradecraft alongside the political machinations of the secret service he tells a story of peripheral spy work that may or may not be driving a real double agent situation. This works as a clever bridge to the new novel and is full of his trademark plotting and pacy cutting dialogue. A writer worth following and go back to the whole Slough House series if you haven't read already.

This book links to the Slough House (Slow Horses} world but is set amongst other 'failures' - the declining group of former cold war spies who had crossed over to the UK and exist on MI5 pensions. In a black comedy of misunderstandings and bluff and double bluff, the back story for one of the 'slow horses' is made clear, whilst one reason for Brexit being such a spectacular failure is amusingly laid on the table by Heron. If you haven't already picked up on this funny series with shades of Le Carre if he was in the pub with Roddy Doyle, here would be a good place to start.

I have loved all of Mick Herron's Slough House novels, but you don't often get the back story of how someone ends up there. Soloman Dortmund (a retired spy) sees what he thinks is a "drop", an exchange of information, in a coffee shop. He wangles a name out of the coffee shop staff, then informs his washed up handler John Bachelor. This starts a chain of events where someone will end their career at Slough House. Sharply written and a joy to read while we wait for Joe Country.

As a long-time fan of Mick Herron’s slow horses, I was delighted to receive a copy of The Drop courtesy of John Murray Press via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Whilst the main series of Slough House novels really needs to be read in order, these novellas can be taken as tasty asides as they fill in the backstories of some of the shifting crew.
As expected from Herron’s prose, the writing is tight and the carefully-crafted plot provides a suitable amount of twists and turns as the characters valiantly occupy their unique world. A thoroughly enjoyable short read.
More please.

I love the Slow Horses series and it’s cast of misfits and this little story from the same universe is just as fabulous.
Everything Mick Herron writes slips effortlessly from profoundly insightful and poetic in parts to very funny and tensely exciting in others.
You just don’t expect such excellent writing in this genre and it is a rare and beautiful thing - long may he continue!

As a huge fan of Mick Herron’s Slough House series, I was delighted to find that, bridging the gap between ‘London Rules’ and the keenly anticipated ‘Joe Country’ comes the novella ‘The Drop’. Not only does it give us the background on the hard-done-by Lech Wicinski, who is about to become the latest recruit to Jackson Lamb’s stables, but we are also entertained by the machinations of ex-spooks, current spooks, the ghastly ‘Lady Di’ Taverner and realistic descriptions of London in the snow. As ever, Herron is wonderful in his delineation of British habits, assumptions and preoccupations so that, despite focusing on an unusual workforce, the reader always feels that the story is set in a real world. There’s even a passing reference to Brexit but, never fear, this won’t spoil the reader’s enjoyment of this tale!
Readers who expect a fully-formed Slough House novel are likely to be disappointed. However, this short treat is beautifully plotted and carefully characterised and the tone is very much that of the dry and wickedly dark humour of the longer novels. Recommended – what’s not to like?
My thanks to NetGalley and John Murray (Publishers) for a copy of this novella in exchange for a fair review.

Once a spook, always a spook. Solomon Dortmund may have retired and be living on a Government pension but when he spots a drop in a cafe he knows he has to report it to his handler. John Bachelor, the handler, is struggling - no home, no savings and no shunted sideways to look after old agents like Solomon. He decides to let a colleague know that Solomon has suspicions about a name. However none realise that there was a drop, there is a triple agent and actually a lot of lines are about to be affected in profound ways.
I read one of Herron's books a while ago and quite enjoyed it. This is a different proposition in the form of a short novella. It took me about an hour to read and I skated through it. Whilst not the biggest fan of spy thrillers I loved the way Herron's plot spiralled around a series of characters without actually going every far. Exciting writing and satisfyingly dissatisfying conclusion.

An excellent addition to the Slough house series. It was great to meet what will be a new SloughHouse character in the next full length novel before it comes out. An enjoyable short read.

5-stars again. Herron is on a roll.

One thing I love about Herron is his disheartening depiction of modern intelligence services as very tightly controlled operations of poorly trained staff... Tightly controlled by political self-servers and shortsighted incompetents, often cruel.

With the previous novella, The List , Herron is showing his finest prose to date. Smooth, rich, with lovely complexities. Pacing is assured and effective, driving the characters forward to their fates.

Here we see Hannah in a cafe, and an old hand retired spy observes something exciting and clear, and reports it into the creaking and cruel modern intelligence service, where it goes astray due to political expediency and incompetence. All this wonderfully presented by Herron.

Delicious! I could read one of this series every day

I’m not particularly shy about my love for Mick Herron and his Slough House series of books. The latest, London Rules was published earlier this year and I have been chomping at the bit ever since for another slice of acerbic wit and hapless spies. The Drop is a novella from the Slough House world and although it doesn’t feature Jackson Lamb or my Slough House crush River Cartwright, we do get to meet the head of MI6 (Lady) Di Taverner again and we are also introduced to the next victim employee of Slough House. Lucky us.

John Bachelor’s job is to look after spies who have been put out to pasture. He is their handler cum babysitter and ensures that they don’t go spilling any secrets from the good old days of the Cold War and inadvertently set off World War 3. He is down on his luck, a financial gamble didn’t pay off and he is living in his car and working out where he can cadge a cup of coffee and a shower. He is visited by an old spook, Solomon Dortmund who is convinced he has seen a drop in a cafe. John isn’t as convinced and is pretty sure that all Sol saw was a woman drop some envelopes but agrees to investigate nevertheless. This may be a mistake because this drop causes a huge ripple and things are going to get interesting.

What follows is both a masterclass in what not to do when you are a spy and in storytelling. The Drop is a short book that comes in at just over 100 pages but there is a massive amount packed into it with twists and turns galore. Mick Herron is an exceptional writer creating full, living, breathing characters and with a few words can make you like or loathe them almost immediately. I missed Jackson Lamb but the book isn’t poorer without him. There is still the trademark humour, satirical wit and clever plotting that makes this a stand out read and it whetted my appetite for the next book in the series.

Old spooks carry the memory of tradecraft in their bones, and when Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope being passed from one pair of hands to another in a Marylebone cafe, he knows he's witnessed more than an innocent encounter. But in relaying his suspicions to John Bachelor, who babysits retired spies like Solly, he sets in train events which will alter lives.
This novella follows on from the previous Slough House novella, ‘The List' and features John Bachelor and the continuing story of agent, Hannah Weiss (code named ‘Snow White’).
A short story that is as always well written & adds some background to some characters. I'd recommend reading the earlier books. Whilst it’s a filler until the next full length novel arrives it's still an enthralling read
My honest review is for a special copy I voluntarily read

If you’ve read the author’s Slough House / Jackson Lamb series of intellectual espionage adventures then you’ll find yourself on familiar territory with this tightly-plotted short story. It’s set in the same universe, with a couple of overlapping characters from the main spy series – and The Drop shares the same themes of backbiting, in-fighting and double-bluffing in the shadowy backrooms of Brexit-Britain’s MI5.

This time the action takes place away from Slough House, and I was certainly happy not to be spending any time with Jackson Lamb, whose anti-social attributes stopped being entertaining about three books ago. Instead, we’re treated to a nostalgic reinterpretation of Cold War tradecraft, and some good old-fashioned double-agent action between competing agencies. Author Mick Herron introduces a new cast of characters – and in a weird turn of circumstance, several of them are more fully realised and far more engaging than the people in his recent full-length novels.

In fact, it’s as if writing for the confines of a much shorter format has given Herron a bit of a boost. The Drop is a splendid showcase for his outstanding prose; the man’s writing craft is pretty much unmatched in the genre these days. And here he has delivered an entirely different story featuring fresh characters, playing the great game to 21st century rules – complete with hi-tech interventions, departmental politics and international intrigue. And I adore his version of winter in London; from the shabby, slushy backstreets to the chintzy coffee parlours to the tall Georgian terraces. It’s all beautifully drawn, pin-sharp and poignant.

On the downside, the experience was all over far too soon. Just as the story felt like it was getting going… so it came to a sudden halt. I suspect that The Drop actually functions as an introduction to Herron’s next spook story, but it costs as much as most full-length novels. Price aside, the brevity of the story left me vaguely unsatisfied.

Nor is it particularly accessible to anyone who hasn’t read the Slough House series. Herron has successfully created his own, unique universe – which means that The Park, Lady Di, the Dogs, the Guardians of the Gate and the general MI5 scenario will be baffling to new readers. The Drop might be intended to encourage people to try Slow Horses but I suspect it could have the opposite effect.

So this is a tricky book to rate. If it pops up on special offer – at, say 99p – then it’s definitely worth grabbing. But will you miss much if you don’t spend £6.99 on it? I suspect not.

6/10

Perfectly formed espionage story set in London. Herron's excellence in description and character is matched with a tight plot in this format. The break from the Slough House regulars and Slough House itself is a breath of fresh air. A bittersweet spy story, will be particularly meaningful to those who've read Herron's series.

When you've done a job for any length of time, the memory, the instincts of it stay with you and they're impossible to forget. It was the same with Solomon Dortmund, a retired spy: when he watches a woman making a drop he knows exactly what he's seeing and he passes this on John Batchelor, the man charged with looking after the retired spooks. Bachelor has problems of his own: the closest he comes to a home is the back seat of his car and he's run out of people whose sofas he can commandeer for the night. The best he can do with Solomon's problem is to pass it on the someone else and hope that they'll deal with it/solve the problem/quietly forget about it.

But at Regent's Park they're excited about something else. Well, 'excitement' might be overstating it a bit, but it's a new double agent who works under the code name of Snow White. She's being transferred to the Brexit Department and whilst there are those who might frown about the fact that she's a double agent spying on Germany, a supposedly friendly power, it's all part of the fun and games. There's a degree of innocence here though: things are not what they seem.

I'll confess to having chosen to read The Drop because of the subtitle: A Slough House Novella. I was expecting Jackson Lamb and the agents we've come to know as the slow horses. Lady Di Taverner makes an appearance, but essentially this is a novella about the workings of that part of the security services known as Regent's Park. I was disappointed, but it doesn't alter the fact that this is a good story that's been very cleverly constructed. It lacks the laugh-out-loud humour of the earlier, full-length Slough House novels, but there were certainly a few wry grins in evidence. Dialogue, as ever, is brilliant and the characters stay with you long after you've finished reading.

It's a quick read: I finished it in little over an hour and once I got over my disappointment about the Slough House connection, it was a thoroughly enjoyable one. I'd like to thank the publishers for making a copy available to The Bookbag.

A well written novella by Nick Herron. I am a big fan of his books. I just wish this book had been a bit longer.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Billed as 'a Slough House novella' (what happened to the 'Jackson Lamb' series?), The Drop doesn't feature any of the regular Slough House crew, but it does introduce a few other bottom of the heap and dumped-upon minor operatives for the British Intelligence who are about to discover what happens when you upset Lady Di Taverner and start poking around in corners where you've no business being.

John Bachelor's only valuable contribution is that he has recruited an agent from the BND - Bundesnachrichtendienst - German Intelligence, although she might not be aware that she is officially an agent or may actually be a double agent. Or even a triple agent in that very left-hand not knowing the right hand way of intelligence services in these "friendly nation" times that Herron has been exploiting to tremendous effect in his Jackson Lamb novels. Bringing real world stupidity into the supposed prestige world of authorities like the national Intelligence services is however something that we've become used to now with politicians in edge of Brexit UK.

Bachelor's problems however are more to do with the everyday impracticalities of living and working in London, a recognisable circumstance that applies to many and which Herron observes with his usual flourishes of colourful metaphor - "his credit cards has been thrashed to within an inch of their lives, they'd combust in the daylight like vampires". Worse still, Bachelor has to put up with supposedly retired spooks like Solomon Dortmund who can't put old habits aside and want to report what they think is an actual physical "drop" taking place in a London Viennese cafe. It's a bit old-school, as if the digital age and encryption technologies hadn't made such operations redundant, not to mention risky and obvious, but John decides it's better to check it out.

The Drop is not your regular Mick Herron Jackson Lamb/Slough House story. It has the same satirical touch on the spy game and it has the same cruel twists of fortune and backstabbing and back covering that we are familiar with, and yes it looks like there is another candidate likely to end up with the unhappy bunch of misfits in Slough House, filling a gap in their rapidly diminishing number after business in the last few books. Without the regular team however it lacks the biting humour and the brutal one-line put-downs that fly between them, the tone a little more sober this time in the style of Nobody Walks.

Which would be fine if Herron developed The Drop along similar lines to that earlier Slough House standalone, but The Drop is a just a tiding-over novella. At just over 100 pages it's actually more of a long short story that introduces a few new characters, but it feels curtailed, restrained in the author's expected humour and the usual flow of poetic touches, coming to much too abrupt a conclusion just as it seems it's getting into his stride. It's always great to see Herron operating in this world however and if that stride carries him through to the next Slough House/Jackson Lamb thriller, well then I think many will happily settle for this little warm-up.

Only connect

Splendidly cynical novella set in the Slough House universe but focusing on John Bachelor, a has-been employee of MI5 whose job is the ‘milk round’ checking up on aged superannuated spies in their dotage or retirement. One such, Solomon Dortmund, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate in a Viennese style coffee shop in London observes a drop or exchange of documents between a young woman and an older man, in the old spy’s eyes, evidently her handler. He reports his suspicions to Bachelor who, homeless and friendless, is inclined not to believe that such antiquated tradecraft as a drop would still be employed, but begins a desultory investigation. The result is shambolic mayhem as MI5 operatives trip over themselves to make an unholy mess of what should have been a solvable incident.

A metaphor, perhaps, of modern England, inward looking, self-regarding, treacherous and incompetent. Good fun, too, though.

I would like to thank Netgalley and John Murray Press for a review copy of The Drop, a short novella set in the world of spooks.

When former asset Solomon Dortmund sees a drop in a coffee shop he passes on the information to his handler, John Bachelor. Drops are an old fashioned way of passing information so nobody puts much credence in Solly’s claim and John uses unofficial channels to check. What happens after that changes lives.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Drop which casts a rather cynical eye over the self interest which rules the actions of The Park (as MI5 is colloquially known). The concept is fairly absurd, making it amusing, but it is extremely sharp on characterisation and motivation. It doesn’t take Mr Herron many words to draw a comprehensive picture and while it is very clever it doesn’t paint the Secret Services in a great light. The novella does not have the laugh out loud moments of the Slow Horses series, none of whom put in an appearance except the scheming Lady Di, but it has the same arch, knowing tone which adds to the reading pleasure.

The Drop is a short, clever read which I have no hesitation in recommending.