Not my usual reading genre but its always nice to try something new!
Im not a James Bond fan and thankfully the protagonist Jackson Lamb is no James Bond!
The writing style is quite unique so it will be the kind of book that you will take to or not, not much middle ground for me anyway!
The series of books are entered around a group of outcast MI5 spooks who have been relegated to pen pushers and office workers due to botched carers. Reject spooks versus the real thing!
But looks can be deceiving and Jackson Lamb proves that he shouldn't be underestimated!
With humour throughout and some interesting characters it makes for a quick entertaining read ( )

This one was more intriguing than the last two. There was also a little more character development and and focus on interpersonal relationships. I enjoyed it. ( )

Here's something to think on - around the 1800's the Home Office was split into Home and Foreign. Home had a finger everything that needed doing within the Empire, so the boundaries were still somewhat blurry, about what was in which brief, no matter. In the FO there were something like 25 people, the Secretary and two Under-Secretaries and a bunch of minions to do paperwork, clerks mostly. They were housed in the former tennis court (!!!!!) in the Whitehall Palace, still extant. In the HO there were many many more and they were housed in something like an old church, but the point is beyond having folded a police force into the organization the HO had nothing even remotely resembling MI5 and the FO didn't use spies so there was no hint of anything like an MI6 either. Not officially anyway and nothing traceable, so likely nothing.
The French? They already did have a spy network.

What has this to do with the Herron ouevre (and all who have gone before Le Carré & etc)? Nothing really, just a thing to marvel over. In this offering River is worried about his grandfather, a former big time spook, who raised him and is now sinking into dementia. He's convinced someone is planning to kill him. Then, something does happen that seems to prove he was right. At the same time a pointless explosion in a shopping center kills around 250 people, including youths coming to a flash mob dance/singing scene. Are the two connected?

Herron's delicious characters enduring their tedious lives in Slough House, and yet? Even though these are broken people; they are a mess and they do stupid things, they are also disaster magnets and they constantly surprise, not unlike Clouseau but different. There is the enigma that is Jackson Lamb for one thing. And one begins to think that the slow horses got where they are because . . . they are naive, yes, but have ethical underpinnings that betray them. This is the best of the best in spy writing and pretty darn great for many other elements: dialogue, humour, characters, you name it, it's here. ***** ( )

Simply excellent. Great characters, page-turning plot, evocative prose and a nice touch of dark humour (sometimes laugh out-loud humour). Highly recommended. ( )

Another fantastic page turner, how I love this series and the characters. It does feel like a game of Russian roulette though with a main character dying in each book though. ( )