Mick Herron - London Rules

Rating: 5/5

Review:
More Herron brilliance

This is another absolutely brilliant book from Mick Herron.  It is rare for me to rave so unreservedly about a book, never mind a series, but Herron's Slough House series has been outstanding.  London Rules is the fifth; its predecessor, Spook Street, was perhaps not quite as good as the others (which still meant it was at least as good as anything else I read last year), but this is possibly the best so far.  It can be read as a stand alone book, but for maximum enjoyment I would recommend reading the books in order, beginning with Slow Horses.

In London Rules, the Slow Horses become semi-officially involved in trying to track down a terrorist cell on the loose following a number of outrages committed by them.  Slough House is recovering from its own bloodbath, including Lamb's expense returns for repairs: "Catherine waded through the day's work…replacing his justifications ("because I blanking say so") with her own more diplomatic phrasing."  (I have substituted the word "blanking" for a considerably more robust copulatory term which would be unacceptable in an review here.)  This sets the tone for the first half of the book, with Jackson Lamb in magnificently offensive, repellent form.  I highlighted lots of gems; this is one of the more printable ones:

Flyte looked at Lamb. 'Ever consider disciplining your staff?

'All the time.  I favour the carrot and stick approach.'

'Carrot or stick'

'Nope.  I use the stick to ram the carrot up their arses.  That generally gets results.'

It is truly laugh-out-loud funny in lots and lots of places; I read some of it over breakfast and nearly did myself some serious internal damage trying not to spray mouthfuls of muesli over my Kindle.  Herron also creates a very good, tense story which he develops with skill, wit and real tension in the second half.

What makes Herron's books so good is this brilliant combination of excellent storytelling, a lot of genuinely hilarious moments and a very shrewd skewering of many of the absurdities and hypocrisies of our time.  The tense internal politics of MI5, political opportunism, ludicrous Twitter theories based on no knowledge and so on all come in for excoriating comment, often from Jackson Lamb whom I regard as one of the truly great creations of 21^st-Century literature.

I don't think I can give London Rules any higher praise than to say it is one of Herron's best.  Very, very warmly recommended.

(I received an ARC via netGalley.)