I have read a couple of books in this series before by Mick Herron, and enjoyed them but I think if this is your first foray into the series, you would be a little confused.

I felt the book started a little incoherently, and actually gave up, I struggled with my conscience for a week before I picked it back up and carried on reading and it really improved once I got to 12% and started to flow, or maybe I just 'got it'?

The book is set in Slow Horse (really Slough House) where spies are put out to grass when they made mistakes and no one knows what to do with them. The head honcho is Jackson Lamb, a seemingly repulsive character with too many bad habits to mention, but has his finger on every pulse that is needed and seems to know everybody's secrets. An interesting character and I think one that saves the book from being just another 'spook' book. His one-liners and general banter do lift the book.

The book opens with a new arrival at Slough House, and carries on with a missing teenager, a funeral of one of the stalwarts of the spy community and a CIA operative who shares DNA with a Slough House inmate. That's just the first couple of chapters so an awful lot happens at once, in contrast to the last few chapters which seem quite drawn out.

On the whole a recommended read, but if you have never read these books before, would encourage you to read them in order.

Many thanks to John Murray Press and NetGalley for giving me the chance to review the book in exchange for an honest review

Slow Horses for Courses!

The latest tale from Mick Herron’s spy thriller series has Jackson Lamb’s team of MI5 misfits embroiled with their own combination of demons from the past, the haunting memories of deceased colleagues and ‘family’ issues, as well as closet-emerging skeletons. Lamb himself apart from developing health problems, finds he too has his very own elephant’s graveyard to deal with as his past slowly creeps up on him, linking his origins with another long-running slow horse in the Slough House stable. There is also a new member who has been recently ejected from ‘The Park’ under accusing circumstances to join them while his investigation is still pending.

The usually expected Herron-esque banter between characters and the metaphoric ‘laugh out loud’ misdemeanours from the vocal cords of Lamb are all here, along with the discourse of locations, as each of the team embark on their own crusade to pursue ‘the bad actors’.

Like the previous books in the series, Herron blends the plot with his own style of descriptive and colourful prose, culminating in members of the team being eventually led on the same path to a breathtaking climax on the snow-ridden Pembrokeshire coast. Readers familiar with the series and the characters, will instantly be drawn into these latest shenanigans, whereas newcomers to Slough House and Jackson Lamb may find the quips and references to the previous books a bit over head height. Altogether, this is yet another masterpiece from this award-winning author being dubbed the new Len Deighton.

My special thanks to John Murray Press for providing this preview copy for review.

The omens aren't good for the unfortunate staff consigned to the scrapheap of the intelligence service in Slough House. Mick Herron traditionally starts his Jackson Lamb novels with a poetic image such as a ray of light briefly illuminating the gloomy interior of the dank building they inhabit or a cat wandering through the building, both imaginary since neither light nor sentient creature would willingly go near the place. The opening image of Joe Country is a burning owl escaping from a blazing barn falling to the ground in a clump of ashes - for real rather this time rather than as a poetic metaphor - sets the tone for what is to come. Joe Country shows us another place that MI5 operatives visit but none ever leave. Death.

Not that the inhabitants of Slough House are unfamiliar with deaths in their ranks, and at least one of them has actually sort of come back from the dead - cheating death being a useful trick to have up your sleeve in the spy trade. No, the shadow of death in the field still hangs over Slough House and its staff from recent events, despite being demoted to perform the lowest and most tedious of menial administrative tasks. But, hey ho, time moves on and there are plenty of other screw-ups ready to fill the growing number of vacated desks in Slough House, and for some of the more incompetent and careless, fill a grave sooner than they otherwise might.

That's another attitude that sets the tone and characterises Mick Herron's irreverent approach to the spook game, recognising as he does that people - even those in high places (oh, I don't know, like a PM or something) and tasked with important matters of national security (like a Minister of Defence maybe) - all have very human flaws and can be ill-suited to their job, incompetent, or just unfortunate. Following Oscar Wilde's view about misfortune, to screw-up once is perhaps forgivable (if you can count the ignominy of being dumped in Slough House as being 'forgiven' in any way), but screw-up twice in this game and the carelessness will cost you dearly.

There's one death however that has already been foretold, and that was the impending demise of River Cartwright's grandfather, affectionately and at the same time unaffectionately referred to as the OB (Old Bastard). A former operative from another age before secrets were easy game to any hacker (or even just with access to Google), the OB has taken some Cold War secrets to his grave with him, but not before dementia spewed out a few uncomfortable and unreliable memories. But as well as a death there's a resurrection of sorts, as Cartwright's father turns up at the funeral, and it's not to pay any last respects. His reappearance takes the Slough House team back out into the field, unleashed in joe country. Which is Wales apparently.

Obviously, you get more out of Joe Country if you are aware of the history that lies behind these characters, and I can't recommend the other books in Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb/Slough House novels highly enough. What is important here is not that the reader is aware of the ups and downs (mostly downs) in their backgrounds, as much as how over the series Herron has developed some wonderful characters and a richly satirical outlook, liberally laced throughout with snappy banter and laugh-out-loud one-liners that would never be permitted in any other workplace, or uttered by anyone other than someone as irredeemable rude and physically revolting as Jackson Lamb.

Some of his longer-serving colleagues are still around, including the brilliant creation (in his own mind at least) of Roderick Ho, Catherine Standish and Louisa Guy, all of whom have new and old challenges to face up to in Joe Country, Catherine with her alcoholism, Guy still getting over the death of Min Harper back in Dead Lions, Ho just living in blissful unawareness of what being Ho really means. And then there are the more recent recruits, but who knows how long it will take them to accept that no way out of Slough House other than the aforementioned, and until they accept that, the chances of them meeting a similar fate are quite likely. Particularly if Lady Di Taverner, First Desk in MI5, is aware that something bad is going down and wants to ensure that someone else takes the blame when it inevitably goes wrong.

Say what you like about Jackson Lamb, and not a lot of it will be good, but he won't let anyone mess around with his unhappy little band of screw-ups. Haring off into joe country however, keen to prove at any opportunity - to themselves at least - that they are undeserving of being the ridicule of the secret service, chances are they'll mess things up pretty badly themselves. Herron throws in a few topical subjects, a few thinly-disguised public figures (Peter Judd still having dangerous influence on public life), all the usual back-stabbing and back-covering, keeping only a few surprises about the nature of Jackson Lamb and Slough House in reserve for maybe the next book. In the meantime, Joe Country is up there with the best of this series.

As a fan of the slow horses since they first made their unwholesome appearance on the scene, I was not disappointed by this their latest outing. It is difficult, so many books in to the series, not to have a guess at which of the characters will not make it to the end of the novel and I guessed correctly this time. Still, the pace and intrigue keep you on your toes and happily turning the pages to keep up with the action. Thoroughly enjoyable. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for sending a copy for review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and John Murray Press for an advance copy of Joe Country, the sixth novel to feature Jackson Lamb and his MI5 rejects at Slough House.

Slough House and its denizens, known pejoratively as Slow Horses because they have all made mistakes bad enough to be banished from mainline Secret Service work, are having a quiet time until a string of events sends them back into unofficial action.

I thoroughly enjoyed Joe Country which had me laughing throughout, not just at the dialogue but the generally absurd situations the characters end up in and above all the sly take on the world of espionage (the eponymous Joe Country). Where to start? The idea of an office where the failures are sent to process useless and tedious paperwork in the hope that they will resign is brilliant but to then make them people with certain skills and an over abundance of hope that they will get their old jobs back is even better. The situations that they get into are a triumph of that hope over capability thus making them extremely amusing. The machinations of Diana Taverner “first desk” at “Five” are less amusing but the most believable part of the novel, being callous, calculating and often cruel. I love it when she gets her comeuppance, especially if it’s at the hands of the Machiavellian Jackson Lamb.

The plotting in this novel which I would find hard to discuss without spoilers is clever, amusing and, at times, touching. There is a strong sense of lost colleagues, loyalty and revenge running through the novel with Lamb, in particular, unusually animated.

It is strong characterisation that really makes the novel from the dreadful Roddy Ho (delusional stalker) to the recovering alcoholic, Catherine Standish (voice of reason) and various points in between. The standouts are, however Jackson Lamb, head of Slough House and Diana “Lady Di” Taverner, head of MI5. She is just awful and so is Lamb physically as he has all sorts of disgusting habits but he has a wonderful mind, always a few steps ahead of the pack and a strong loyalty to his team.

Joe Country is a great read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

The story opens with a prologue about a burning barn with two dead bodies. Then the opening chapter involves a phone call to one of the slow horse ladies for help to find a lost teen ager. When she too goes missing and could be in danger they all set out to find her. Nothing is as simple as it seems as they are soon up against ruthless assassins and old enemies. With the fore knowledge of the prologue the reader is left on a knife edge as to who will be ending up dead. A most interesting and exciting read with office politics playing in the background plotting to get rid of the thorn in Lady Di side. The slow horses win through leaving two dead behind but as they are licking their wounds they learn of their bureaucratic demise leaving the reader to wonder what happens next. Can’t wait to find out.

Joe Country is book six in the Slow Horses series by Mick Herron and like the previous five it is another unique, entertaining and brilliant spy novel.

The writing is outstanding with an undercurrent of black humour that just adds to the overall enjoyment of reading of the book.

This is one of the best current spy series and Joe Country is another worthy addition and is 100% recommended

The latest tale of the dysfunctional characters in Slough House with Jackson Lamb at their head. A clever use of current political figures might give a clue as to the author's feelings around ongoing real life events but doesn't prevent enjoyment of the foibles and political incorrectness of the lead character. Cleverly constructed tale of a new character wrongly accused and inserted with the rest of the now familiar crew, violence ensues with a thinly disguised member of the Royal Family an essential part of the plot all building to a bloody climax and at the end an unanswered question as to the groups future. As before recommended!

The first time I have read any of this series of books and oh dear, yet another hackneyed view of what goes on in the world of Intelligence. Here we have a group of low ability officers, all with severe problems of their own, literally housed in almost a slum, disowned by their peers, out of control and able to roam the country killing and being killed in the hunt for a rogue ex-CIA operative now a mercenary - really!
The first part of the story read like a dictionary of old metaphors and I can see why one previous reviewer gave up early on but I decided to continue and while I have to say the book improved I cannot eulogise over it like so may others before me. However, all views are subjective and we are all free to give our own and I would still like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for this chance to leave an honest review.

Ahh, boy have I missed Jackson Lamb and his crew of misfits.
The characters we love are back! Take one or two either side of the midway point for artistic flair and you still have a conglomeration of backgrounds and unique personalities that make the Jackson Lamb series so enjoyable to read.

At times I found myself laughing along with the story, starting when Jackson Lamb makes his first appearance, and growing in prominence from that point onwards. But at other times I felt what could only be described as real emotion. Yes, even though the book is riddled with witty humour, there are those moments that are on the more serious side.

Favourite quote;
“What might have been a triple, if your idea of a single was a double”

Thanks you NetGalley on John Murray for a review copy.

The Slough House series is an absolute joy - and Herron doesn't disappoint with the latest instalment of goings on amongst the Slow Horses. Some new characters and a meeting with River Cartwright's father lead to a chase through snowy Wales as the question arises - just what did the young boy see and who wants to ensure he doesn't tell anyone? Great read and the threat of a tv adaptation of the books makes this the must read series of books for lovers of spy fiction.

It is not often I abandon a book, but I read through a quarter or so of this book and gave up. It starts telling a story, mentions a character and then gives you the full background of that person, then after several pages later goes back to the initial incident. I found it confusing to read and the story did not flow well. Sorry to say I did not like it but that is solely my opinion and do not be put off reading it.

The misfit Slow Horses of Slough House are back led by the amazing Jackson Lamb ,a sort of George Smiley for the new age..Actually he is about as far from Smiley as you could get except that he can be just as ruthless but without the smooth edges that hides Smileys.
When Laura.one on the Slow Horses is approached by her dead lovers widow to help find her missing teenage son she does so out of guilt and feels its nothing more than the boy taking off with a girlfriend or trying out some illegal substances.Little does she know the boy has seen something he shouldn't have and certain of those involved have sent an execution squad of mercenaries after him to make sure his secret never gets out.
Back at Slow House a new horse has arrived put out to grass while under investigation for having child porn on his laptop and one of the existing horses River Cartwright has seen his absent father at his grandfathers funeral and as he is responsible for the deaths of at least one of the slow horses in previous books there are scores to settle.
The follows a murderous trek to find Laura and the boy in the snow covered Welsh countryside in a race with the mercenary team sent to silence him,unprepared underarmed and unsure of what is going on not all will make it home.Back in London labyrinthine plots political intrigue occupy the remaining MI5 misfits till Jackson Lamb pieces it together in his own inimitable way.
A thrilling read and a welcome addition to the series .Mick Herron has an enthralling premise an amazing cast of characters and a nice cynical vision of those who are tasked with the safety of the nation but whose leaders are more interested in empire building and covering their own backs.Read them all you wont be disappointed.

Joe Country by Mick Herron
Mick Herron is one of my favourite authors and another novel involving the wonderful Jackson Lamb is a real treat. Lamb’s personality is well expressed in this comment “ …as for Lamb, he’d deal with the devil if the circumstances required. Whether the Devil would shake hands with Lamb was a different question. Even Satan has his standards.”
Lamb is in charge of Slough House a repository for former spies who have messed up in one way or another or have fallen foul of the machinations of someone further up the food chain than them. Herron is not averse to dispatching the inhabitants of Slough House and it was interesting to find out where the axe was going to fall this time. Those familiar with the series, I am sure, all have a favourite Slow Horse and it was perturbing speculating whether it would be your Slow Horse who failed to make the end of the novel. There is a new slow horse to add to the equation, Lech or Alec Wicinski who was introduced in the novella The Drop. He is greeted with all the goodwill and friendship that we have come to expect from Jackson Lamb and his joes.
“Louisa hoped she wasn’t going to have to pick sides. Roddy Ho versus a kiddy porn user: it’d be like choosing between Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan in a bare-knuckle death-match. There ought to be a way both could lose.”
The series is packed with black humour and the comments on our politicians are cutting and very of the moment.
“It’s no secret she wasn’t so much made leader as handed a janitor’s uniform. Once Brexit’s finalised, and her job looks less like an excrement baguette, someone more competent will step into her breeches.”
The death of River’s grandfather is the catalyst for the arrival of River’s father Frank Harkness, ex CIA and current mercenary who, in an earlier novel, upset Jackson by eliminating one of his joes. The Slow Horses are let loose and there is an exciting climax in snow covered Pembrokeshire. If you haven’t read any of the books from this series I envy you, you have a treat in store.
Thank you to the publishers and Net Galley for the opportunity to review this brilliant book.

‘Joe Country’ is the sixth instalment in Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb spy thriller series, a genre-redefining saga chronicling the seamy, low-fi and delightfully quirky espionage capers involving a ragtag bunch of contemporary MI5 agents.
Among the many reputable writers who have taken up the gauntlet of writing spook thrillers in the post-Cold War era, Herron stands head and shoulders above the competition in my opinion for originality, acerbic wit and sheer writing talent. At the core of his stories is the infamous Slough House, an operational base as far removed from a Q-style secret intelligence hub as possible. Slough House is a dingy building in one of central London’s less salubrious corners, home to an obscure department led by former MI6 agent Jackson Lamb, who lords over it like an ageing, outmoded and down-at-heel circus ringmaster.
Slough House is home to a motley crew of ‘slow horses’ – MI5 operatives who have been relegated to Jackson Lamb’s unsavoury domain after committing sundry sackable offences for which the Service doesn’t even bother with an actual sacking, happy to simply ship off said horses to the farthest-flung, most arid pastures of its secretive empire.
The crew includes a borderline psychopath who hardly ever speaks, a young lady with a cocaine habit compounded by anger management issues, an IT wizard whose hacking skills are matched only by his complete failure to cotton on to the fact he’s a presumptuous misfit, a gritty young woman whose tenuous regard for her nose-diving intelligence career was ripped to shreds by the death in the line of duty of a colleague and lover, an earnest young man whose own career nose-dive was barely cushioned by the fact he’s the nephew of a former MI6 legend known as the OB (for Old Bastard), and who’s ready to flap his fledgling wings at any opportunity to play the real intelligence game, and a middle-aged former alcoholic, PA to a previous Service boss who suffered her booze-induced shortcomings precisely because she was seeing the world through the bottom of a bottle or ten, and failed to notice her boss was working for the Kremlin all the time. And the latest addition to the crew, an intelligence analyst caught with reams of underage porn on his Service laptop and promptly banished to Slough House.
The lord and master of Slough House, the belching, malodorous, socially most incorrect Jackson Lamb, of whom Herron quips that, while he may be willing to shake hands with the Devil, he might not be reciprocated, because even Satan has standards, was once upon a time a joe in various treacherous countries the other side of the Wall, when spying was allegedly an ‘us whites’ vs ‘them blacks’ affair, though of course everyone turned out to be cloaked in every possible shade of grey. Lamb is still alive and kicking in the world of British intelligence because he has more dirt on anyone within the Service than anyone else, and no one is yet prepared to take him to task, or call his bluff. For all his character failings, Lamb is very clear about one thing though: no one messes with his joes, even if they’re slow horses.
So when Frank Harkness, a rogue former CIA operative who, in a previous Jackson Lamb novel, ‘Spook Street’, was spotted but alas not caught trying to stage a lethal intelligence coup - lethal for Her Majesty’s innocent subjects and for one slow horse in particular - shows up uninvited at the Old Bastard’s funeral, and successfully evades capture by the OB’s nephew (who also happens to be Harkness’s son, but that’s another story), Lamb is not one to look the other way. Nor is he at all inclined to call on the resources of the Secret Service proper to track down Harkness, preferring instead to unleash his slow horses in pursuit of Harkness, out there in joe country.
A decision which readers of the series’ previous novels won’t be surprised at, though as usual Herron shuffles cleverly his vast cast of characters – including a sadly believable Boris Johnson spoof – and builds another remarkable tale of first-rate intrigue and second-rate, but no less heartfelt, intelligence work, as the slow horses find themselves enmeshed in the shadowy aftermath of a UK-engineered arms deal involving minor royalty in a sex-and-violence scandal – two grubby deals for the price of one in fact, which will lead to a dangerous game of cat and mouse between the slow horses and Harkness’s team in snow-bound Pembrokeshire, of all places.
As often happens with Herron, to begin with the plot staunchly refuses to pick up what would be a more canonical ‘Mission: Impossible’ speed. Herron’s narrative has the pace of a weaving slalom run rather than that of a reckless downhill race. Yet I found ‘Joe Country’ as irresistible as its predecessors for its peerless timing, the story leisurely enveloping the reader in its coils before giving a series of gut-wrenching squeezes, as some of the slow horses find themselves in dire trouble.
While Mick Herron’s intelligence heroes are consistently at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to official recognition for services rendered, his novels have been sweeping up literary awards with equal consistency. The first novel in the Jackson Lamb series, ‘Slow Horses’, published in 2010, was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger, the second, ‘Dead Lions’, won the 2013 CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger, and all the subsequent novels in the series were in turn nominated for at least one of the Gold and Steel Daggers, the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year, and the Macavity Award. A critical success which Herron has replicated with his other, anything-but-conventional crime novels, my personal favourite being ‘Smokes and Whispers’ featuring redoubtable private eye Zoe Boehm.
‘Joe Country’ is a worthy addition to Herron’s collection of contemporary thriller gems, one in which he mines the rich narrative ore of the Jackson Lamb series, unearthing fresh connections between the characters and injecting new electricity into seemingly dormant ones – while making sure that new readers aren’t left in the dark.
Beneath Herron’s corrosive humour and wily irony, all may not be well in the world of British secret intelligence – in fact in the whole of the not very United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Yet, so long as we can believe there are slow horses out there harnessed to Jackson Lamb’s rickety carriage, we can be sure that someone will try their damnedest to do the right thing – if not in the real world, then certainly in Mick Herron’s subtle, entertaining and fascinating fictional one.

I do admire authors who can sustain a series of books with no loss of quality and Mick Herron is a master in this. His writing is superb - I often find myself rereading paragraphs which provide a very vivid sense of place, especially his descriptions of the seedier parts of London and in particular Slough House where his cast of second-rate spooks hangs out. You can almost smell it. And the dialogue is snappy and often very entertaining. But his achievement in developing the characters of the spooks is especially noteworthy.

Jackson Lamb is, as ever, the last man you'd want to be trapped in a lift with but, in spite of the way he punishes his body, his brain remains impressively sharp. His loyalty to his joes is unshakeable although expressed in bizarre ways. His relationship with Catherine Standish is particularly interesting: he appears to torment the recovering alcoholic with his own excessive drinking but clearly relishes their intellectual sparring.

The other joes more or less successfully navigate their way through danger, sometimes of their own making - I especially like Shirley Dander's swashbuckling approach to the world. Herron is very good at writing tough women although I think that rather too many of them are, to a greater or lesser extent, now mourning lost men. We gain a new character and we lose a couple who have had relatively minor roles. The political machinations at senior levels in the Service continue.

The plot is ever so slightly clunky in this book, although not entirely implausible. And an escaped villain offers a thread to be pursued in the next book. For which I hope we don't have too long to wait.


Thanks to John Murray and Netgalley for an ARC

Another superb instalment in this outstanding series. Shame about some excellent characters exiting, but River and Lamb continue on their merry way. I get the feeling that First Desk is going to receive a lot of payback in the next book to which I look forward with great anticipation.

This new book from Mick Herron is a continuation of the activities of the residents, ex spooks, of Slough House. Namely , slow horses, expelled into a hinterland for espionage experts who have for one reason or another caused the termination of their careers usually through their own incompetence. All bitter, frustrated, and unable to accept the demise of any worthwhile future; daily employment becomes a senseless monotonous grind of useless activity. and inaction. That is until several things stir up their usual apathy and harnesses past skills, albeit now sluggish and rusty through lack of use. A new addition to the team, furious that no one believes in his innocence of a crime. A phone call from the widow of a dead spook, followed by a meeting begging for help. A young boy, missing with no apparent clues to where or why. A random decision taken by an ex mistress to go off radar and find him in an effort to absolve her guilt over an affair. And suddenly, in the midst of the worst snowstorm for decades, our band of misfit losers are struggling to make sense of events. Dormant skills need dusting off and fine tuning if the are to solve the mystery, unaware that they are very much a communal David taking on Goliath. On the most basic level an excellent mystery. Enriched and magnified by the humorous and well crafted descriptions and dialogue of our hopeless protagonists. Every character is three dimensional, all failures in one way or another yet combining as a team to deliver the very best of themselves. Also a very topical insight into the authors view on political involvement in security matters. Self promotion and double standards as a reason for intervention rather than the primary security of the country. The conclusion leaves us hungry to learn more of our band of lost souls who would always produce results in shades of grey, A welcome addition to the series.

Usual fast paced, thrilling read. So descriptive and well judged, I feel I'm getting to know the characters and feel empathy even for the most tortured ones.

Joe Country
Mick Herron

<b>W O W ! 5 Stars! </b> Mick Herron reaches the top tier!

<B>Joe Country</b> <u>is by far his best-ever spy noir</u>. Fabulous!

Thank you again, NetGalley, for this wonderful series.

Truly great noir, and terrific wry humour. Whereas Herron's earlier books oozed bravado, this one exudes confidence. Herron is fully in control, and the result is marvellous.

<i> As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.</i>

<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/londons-coolest-espionage-locations/" target="blank">London's Most Famous Spy Locations (The Telegraph)</a>


48%
Excellent so far. Great chats between the players, especially the private one between Catherine and Lamb. Scary one between Taverner and Judd.

River's father, as we learned in the previous book, is really a terribly nasty piece of work. Some nasty people only get nastier with age, as a kind of desperation to make it work.

55%
I don't remember Shirley being such a total arse in previous books. Whatever. She's even worse here.

Much of the book takes place in Wales during a snowstorm
<img src="https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/resources/images/9510023.jpg">
<a href="https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/resources/images/9510023.jpg" target="blank">Full size image here</a>

60%
The arrogance, carelessness and inhumanity of those in charge of the Park keep compounding, ruining the lives of the innocent just to escape from responsibility for their ineptitude. Sickening.

76%
Fascinating. Bad guy Lars dealing out some justice to a random gobshite along his path. Redemptive? No, he still heads off to kill the innocent.

78%
Even though the story has split into eight points of view, Herron manages to keep them all straight and clear and tense. Great stuff !

85%
<B>Terrific multiple climaxes, terrible losses and a very satisfying resolution. Extraordinary noir, poignant, complex and not at all predictable. </b>

<b>Some outstanding quotes:</b>

Herron feels the city in winter:
<i>Snow was forecast, and the pavements were hard as iron.You felt it in each step, the bone-cold stones hammering through your frame, because this was what London did, when the weather reminded the city it was temporary: it hunched down tight.</i>

<img src="https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/media/photologue/photos/cache/storm_large.JPG">

River considers his dying grandfather:
<i>The bed the O.B. would never leave was a clinical, robust device, with upright panels to prevent him from rolling off, and various machines monitoring his progress. On one, his pulse echoed, a signal tapped out from a wavering source. A last border crossing, thought River. His grandfather was entering joe country.</i>

Herron does not hide his political vitriol:
<i>It turned out that in the governance of a nation’s security, many absurd situations had to be worked around: a toxic clown in the Foreign Office [Boris Johnson], a state visit by a narcissistic bed-wetter [Trump], the tendency of the electorate to jump off' the occasional cliff [Brexit].</i>

A bit of noir:
<i>And now the building [Slough House] subsides, the effect of shadows cast by a passing bus. Memories stir, the residue of long brooding-the stains people leave on the spaces they’ve occupied-but these will be gone by morning, leaving in their place the usual vacancies, into which new sorrows and frustrations will be poured.</i>

Lech contemplates his parents' journey from Poland after WW-2
<i>...he couldn’t help wondering how it had felt: refugees turning up from concentration camps, from a broken Europe, to find this bleak estate; its squat huts their new homes.There’d been watch towers and barbed wire fences. It can’t have looked like freedom. But freedom was measured, he supposed, by what you were leaving behind.</i>

The last of the O.B. [old bastard]:
<i>For the last year of his life, his grandfather’s conversations had had no anchor, and whether he’d been talking to Rose, who was absent, or River, who was not, made no difference; he would drift with the prevailing current, his conversation spinning into eddies or battering invisible rocks. All his life, River had heard tales from the old man’s past, the failures, the victories, the stalemates, and he had learned to read between the lines enough to tell which was which. But no longer. The scraps he heard now were remnants from a shot memory; tattered flags blown by conflicting winds.You’d need a map to know which side the old man had been on. Which might have been the last secret he needed to impart to his grandson; that in the end, all lines blurred. That no day had firm borders.</i>

River is repeatedly abused by memories of the disdain of his mother, and the outright cruelty of his father:
<i>River hadn’t lived with his mother since he was seven, when she’d left him at her parents’ door, and his fading memories of the life they’d shared were scrappy and unfulhlled. Until lately, when he’d thought about those years, the context had been one of bad parenting, but now he thought about how unhappy she must have been, how desperate. He didn’t think she’d survive another taste of that. He was pretty certain he wouldn’t survive hearing about it.</i>

Taverner trying to rid herself of her sins at Slough House, and the brilliant slob Lamb thwarting her at every turn:
<i>River would suggest they get a room, provided the room was soundproofed, locked, and had an alligator in it.</i>

Reminds us of Boris Johnson's utter, shameful failure as Foreign Secretary, set up by Theresa May two years ago:
<i>If you want your enemy to fail, give him something important to do. This stratagem-known for obscure historical reasons as ‘The Boris’</i>

A bit of the love-hate of alcoholism:
<i>[Catherine] left the Tube a stop early, called at the Wine Citadel, and bought a Barolo. An understated label of which she approved. A good wine spoke for itself. It went into a plastic bag, and should have been an anonymous weight in her hand, but somehow wasn’t. There was something about a full bottle, the way it responded to gravity, that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. It was like carrying a big brass key, which would open the biggest door ever heard of.</i>

Something's wrong with Lamb, even more than usual:
<i>Catherine: ‘Chest infection! You’re sure? It sounds like your whole body’s in revolt.’
Lamb: ‘Antibiotics’ll clear it up.’
C: ‘They tend not to work with drink taken.’
L: ‘They’re drugs, they’re not fucking Irishmen.’</i>

Super-gnurd, Roddy Ho:
<i>He’d been listening to the classics lately-Guns n’ Roses; Deep Purple-an indication of growing maturity. There was a specially wistful drum solo on "Live in Japan". That shit had escaped him when he was younger.</i>

Betrayal:
<i>... "enough,’ she said, ‘that he could work it out and sell the name?’
‘He didn’t have to.’ Lamb’s words were hard as bullets. ‘He only had to sell a single syllable.’
That made no sense, until it did. What single syllable could make a difference? Only one Catherine could think of. <b>She.</b></i>

Lamb considers the O.B.
<i>The last time she’d seen David Cartwright he’d been a scared old man, nervy of shadows. Perhaps it was true what they said about age: that in its darker corners lurk the monsters of our own making.</i>

Catherine's memories of the terrible end for her last boss, Charles Partner:
<i>Catherine closed her eyes and saw it again: Partner’s body in the bathtub; the contents of his head a red mess on the porcelain. A pulpy mixture, like trodden grapes. Some memories seared themselves on your mind, like a shadow on a wall after a nuclear flash.</i>

Louisa considers how far the service has fallen since the greats of the post-war/cold-war era:
<i>Secrecy was the Service’s watchword, but leaking like a sieve was what it did best. When the leaked material was classified the leaker was tracked down and strung up, or so the handbook required,</i>

Emma Flyte with River sees his apartment for the first time:
<i>"Nice as your place is.’
‘My cleaner’s not been well.’
‘Looks like your cleaner got old and died. Possibly of shock when decimal currency came in."</i>

River considers how to catch Frank, his monster of a father, with the limited resources of Slough House:
<i>Given the run of the hub, they’d pinpoint his whereabouts in hours, but with the resources at their disposal River might as well be on Slough House’s roof, using a kitchen roll holder as a telescope.</i>

Idiot Pynne considers the agent he's running in London:
<i>Pynne had never wanted to be a joe, preferring to view the world from a desk, confident that these desks would become bigger, their views more panoramic, as his career skyrocketed. But it couldn’t be denied that moments like this carried excitement; a pleasure that was necessarily furtive, borderline sexual.</i>

River confronts Lamb:
<i>River heard a striking match.
Lamb: ‘Still got your going-away present?’
River: ‘Yes.’
L: ‘Good. Shoot yourself in the head. Then Shirley. Then the mad monk.’
R: ‘Definitely the order I’d choose,’ River said.</i>

The bad guys are armed with Sig Sauers
<img src="https://modernwarriors.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Sig-Sauer-P320C-BLK-1a.jpg">

Snow in joe country, in Wales:
<i>The fields all around were smooth plains, and the trees against the morning skyline looked like Christmas decorations. Snow, though. Soft and fluffy on the outside, but ruthless as a shark. It was the fucking Disney Corp by other means.</i>

Judd confronts Taverner:
<i>He raised a hand to forestall her response.
‘Don’t bother denying it. We both know the PM’s a tormented creature [Theresa May]. Like one of those soft toys lorry drivers fix to their radiator grilles.That expression she wears, it’s terror at all the oncoming vehicles.’</i>

<img src="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/06/07/article-0-0183A91800000578-871_468x444.jpg">
<a href="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/06/07/article-0-0183A91800000578-871_468x444.jpg" target="blank">Full size image here</a>

Will post to Amazon soon