Mick Herron - This Is What Happened

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Implausible and unsatisfying

I have loved every one of Mick Herron's Slough House novels and tried the stand-alone This Is What Happened on the strength of them.  It is nothing like as good.

It is hard to give an idea of the book without excessive spoilers, but although it appears to begin as an espionage novel in an exciting opening sequence, it becomes apparent very soon that all is not what it appears to be and the book develops into more of a run-of-the-mill thriller.  Herron writes well (of course), but the plot and characters really didn’t convince me, with implausibilities and coincidences which stretched my tolerance well beyond its elastic limit.

So, I'm afraid I thought the book was rather silly, wholly unbelievable and simply unsatisfying as a book.  I'm looking forward immensely to the next instalment of Jackson Lamb, but This Is What Happened didn't come anywhere near the quality of that series and I can't recommend it.

(My thanks to John Murray for an ARC via NetGalley.)