Mick Herron - Dead Lions

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

This is brilliant.  It's the second in Mick Herron's Slough House series and I'd suggest that you read the first, Slow Horses, before Dead Lions, but it's not essential.

Herron has created Slough House, an annexe of MI5 where the agent who are "mess-ups" (not the exact words used in the book) are sent.  It is presided over by Jackson Lamb, who is one of the great creations of modern fiction, I think.  He's an old Service hand who is personally repellent, offensive, rude gloriously politically incorrect – and under that, a brilliant spy.  From this, Herron develops a sly, witty and occasionally genuinely hilarious spy thriller – but a really good thriller, nonetheless.  The plot here revolves around the possible discovery of a network of Sleepers and it unravels brilliantly as Herron has diverse but believable characters slowly unpicking leads, following false trails and so on.  It's extremely well done, and it kept me awake far too late as I was too gripped to put it down before I'd finished it.

It is Lamb who makes this series such a joy.  To give a flavour, try this exchange between him and a new "recruit" to Slough House:

"I've forgotten your name."

"It's Longridge."

"I don’t want to know it.  I was making a point."

Or Jackson lamb's five stages of grieving: disbelief, anger, bargaining, indifference, breakfast.

I loved this.  It’s a brilliant, gripping read, I laughed out loud several times and it's just beautifully done.  Very warmly recommended.