| Title | : | Dead Lions (Slough House, #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1616952253 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781616952259 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 348 |
| Publication | : | First published May 7, 2013 |
| Awards | : | CWA Gold Dagger (2013) |
Now the slow horses have a chance at redemption. An old Cold War-era spy is found dead on a bus outside Oxford, far from his usual haunts. The despicable, irascible Jackson Lamb is convinced Dickie Bow was murdered. As the agents dig into their fallen comrade's circumstances, they uncover a shadowy tangle of ancient Cold War secrets that seem to lead back to a man named Alexander Popov, who is either a Soviet bogeyman or the most dangerous man in the world. How many more people will have to die to keep those secrets buried?
Dead Lions (Slough House, #2) Reviews
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This is a superior, intelligent and a darkly comic novel located in the world of spooks and espionage. Slough House is the destination for failed spies known as 'slow horses', a play on Slough House. All want to return to the real action and are even prepared to work with one another in an effort to realise that dream. They are to have their chance when Dickie Bow, an old has-been cold war spy, is discovered dead on a Oxford bus. The difficult and hard to like Jackson Lamb is certain that Dickie was murdered. The politically ambitious Spider Webb annexes two of Lamb's spies to protect and meet the demands of a Russian oligarch, from whom Webb expects to profit personally and politically. This is a tale of a mythic and legendary spy, sleeper cells, the Russian Mob, and the past coming to infiltrate the present.
It is a convoluted trail that Lamb's spies follow. River Cartwright, whose grandfather was a senior spy, finds himself in the unremarkable village of Upshott with a defunct military base and a number of influential inhabitants. The murder of one of their own has the team determined to get justice of one kind or another. Nothing is as it seems, and Roddy Ho is key to uncovering a number of discrepancies and sleights of hand. There are bombs, explosions, and a deadly search for vengeance amidst the Stop the City protests in London. The two separate storylines turn out to be connected. With betrayal, political infighting and manoeuvring, our spies fight for their lives and reputations.
This is an impressively plotted and beautifully written book packed with twist after twist. It is a superb trope on the smoke and mirrors world of espionage. The author has constructed a wonderful cast of characters that include River Cartwright's grandfather. I love the dry wit and humour in the story. This is a terrific and entertaining novel, after all, it won the 2013 CWA gold dagger! Brilliant read which I highly recommend. Thanks to John Murray Press for an ARC.
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4.5★
“‘You want to know what Lamb wanted, right?’
‘Just a clue.’
‘He’d kill me. And he could do it, too. He’s killed people before.’
‘That’s what he wants you to think,’ River said.
‘You’re saying he hasn’t?’
‘I’m saying he’s not allowed to kill staff. Health and safety.”
And yes, he could. Lamb could. He runs the slow horses, the has-been or the might-have-been spies who’ve been relegated to spook limbo in Slough House where the heavies in MI5 and Regent Park hope they’ll get bored and resign.
Lamb is a deliciously disgusting character, as is his office, where
“The air is heavy with a dog’s olfactory daydream: takeaway food, illicit cigarettes, day-old farts and stale beer. . .”
He’s nearly always grubby and greasy and stuffing himself with bacon sandwiches after which he farts noisily and lights yet another cigarette. I kept expecting him to cause a small explosion or be hoist by his own petard, literally. (My dad once told me that the origin of the word ‘petard’ was ‘break wind’ in old French, so I looked it up, and it’s true. Goes back to Latin, but I digress. Still, to be hoist by one’s own petard paints an amusing picture, eh?)
But he’s also learned a lot and forgotten nothing, which make it impossible to get the better of him. Doesn’t know the meaning of politically correct. Dreadful boss. Catherine Standish and River Cartwright approach him in his office, seeking information.
‘We don’t like being out of the loop.’
‘You’re always out of the loop.The loop’s miles away. Nearest you’ll get to being in the loop is when they make a documentary about it and show it on the History Channel. I thought you were aware of that.’”
. . .
“Lamb plucked a stained mug from the litter on his desk, and threw it at Catherine. River caught it before it reached her head. Lamb said, ‘Well, I’m glad we’ve had this chat. Now f*** off. Cartwright, give that to Standish. Standish, fill it with tea.’”
Catherine Standish had been a fairly important person as assistant to and eventually carer for a very influential, but later disgraced, senior official, now deceased, hence her demotion. River Cartwright bombed out on a training exercise when he was undermined by James “Spider” Webb, who sabotaged it. The details are in the last book, but this is not a spoiler, if you haven’t read it yet.)
River is still employed, not by the grace of God but by the grace of Grandad Cartwright, a renowned and retired old spook whom nobody still dares cross. He knows where too many skeletons are buried, figuratively and literally.
“. . . once a spook you were always a spook, and everything else was just cover. So the friendly old man trowelling his flowerbeds with a silly hat on remained the strategist who’d helped plot the Service’s course through the Cold War, and River had grown up learning the details.
This case harks back to the Cold War, and River chats to Granddad about it, but finds him pretty circumspect. He will drop the occasional crumb of information about dealings with the Russians, but as for possible ongoing threats, or reasons for them, he speaks only about an imaginary villain, a ‘scarecrow’ whom the Russians invented to get the British to follow.
But when former spy Dickie Bow is found dead on a bus, a few people take notice. He may have been a washed-up operative, but he had been one of the family, so to speak, in the old days, and Lamb decides to investigate. Not because he cares, mind you.
“There was no brotherhood code. If Dickie Bow had succumbed to a mattress fire, Lamb would have got through the five stages without batting an eye: denial, anger, bargaining, indifference, breakfast.”
(Bacon sandwiches, no doubt.) His investigation does unearth a phone.
“It was an ancient thing, a Nokia, black-and-grey, with about as many functions as a bottle opener. You could no more take a photo with it than send an e-mail with a stapler.”
It seems, the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!
Oh. To do a trade deal? Sounds kind of boring, and is . . . until suddenly, it isn’t. Spider Webb is set to make a name for himself, River gets sent to the countryside, tracking down a lead, and Min Harper and Lousa Guy are assigned to look after the Russians.
Many characters return, and new characters are added. This may be funny and entertaining, but the job is deadly and people do die. Sadly. I was starting to enjoy someone who won’t be back, but no hints.
The action does get pretty heavy (well, I said somebody didn’t make it), so it’s not all fun and games.
All in all, another absolute delight. I didn’t guess the plot or the connections, and I certainly didn’t guess the ultimate ending. There are hints along the way, so there’s no sudden surprise revelation, just a peeling back of information which I find very satisfying.
I should add that it’s well-written and the descriptions of place and atmosphere are as good as those of the characters. A church spire in a country town reached “a skyline it had kissed for hundreds of years”.
Incidentally, I think this would read fine as a stand-alone. Enough background is given here and there to appreciate the characters’ histories.
Thanks again to NetGalley and Hachette Australia for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted. On to #3 in the series! -
3.5
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This is proving to be a very addictive series. Fortunately I have all of them sitting on my Kindle so I will be able to feed my addiction:)
As in the first book we watch our group of MI5 misfits bumble and stumble their way through situations they do not understand and which are usually not what they seem. In this book several of the Slow Horses are involved in really serious situations and one dies. This author is not afraid of leaving corpses behind, including those of the good guys!
What is it that is so appealing about these books? I think it is mostly down to the characters who are all appealing in their own varied ways. The dialogue is smart, a bit dark, and frequently funny. And Jackson Lamb is perfectly cast. Overweight, drinks and smokes too much, doesn't care what he says to anybody, frequently extremely rude and yet he is always at least one step ahead of anybody else in what is going on.
I would recommend this series to anyone who likes their spy stories with a touch of irreverence and humour. -
Book 2 in the Slough House series published 2013
A 4 star addition to the series.
I’m going to start by stating the obvious, for most people, that Slough House is where all the MI5 rejects go. These hapless spooks spend their time pushing paper and generally just killing time until retirement or resignation, which ever come first, arrives.
The interesting thing is that as hapless as these ‘slow horses’, as they are called, are they still manage to be a step ahead of all the James Bond types, the ones with all the brain power.
What that says about British intelligence I’ve leave up to you.
A more unlikely bunch of hero can’t be found, even if you looked really hard.
The head of Slough House is Jackson Lamb. Back in the day when Europe was still struggling with the cold war syndrome Jackson Lamb was a force to be reckoned with. But now he is well over weight, chain smoking, hard drinking, renowned for his voluminous farting and the owner of the most acerbic tongue you are ever likely to encounter. But for all that he’s still miles ahead of his nearest rival.
This all starts with the death of Dickie Bow, a long time forgotten spy from the seventies. Forgotten by most but not Jackson Lamb. Who in Gods name, Lamb thought, would want to off Dickie Bow? An alcoholic nobody.
Lamb smells a rat, a big dead one. The paper pushing is put on hold and the hapless Slow Horses go into action. It soon become obvious, when one of their own ends up dead, that this is no minor event. Stranger still, to Lamb, is that the top brass seem to be hell bent on a cover up.
Intrigue seeps from every page as you try to figure out just what the hell is going on.
From the congested street of London to a leafy pastoral country village ‘the games afoot’. But what’s the game and who’s foot is doing the kicking?
As before the writing is impeccable. My one small gripe is the chapter structure. They were long and I found the many changes of character scenarios within the chapter confusing at times. Having to back track to see what I was missing. To be fare, there were line gapes when the character scenarios changed but I managed to miss quite a few of them. One minute I was reading about Lamb and the next he was gone and a different character was on centre stage. Back a couple of pages and there was the line space that I had, once again, missed.
But that is a very minor fault in what was a damned fine read.
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4 ☆
The friendlier the territory, the scarier the natives.
Dead Lions had a tough act to follow as
Slow Horses, the debut novel of the Slough House series, had set the bar very high. Herron had written the sequel as a standalone, however, so new readers could start here. I'd then recommend reading the first installment before resuming the series.
Slough House isn't the name of a building but an epithet for a particular branch of MI5, Britain's Secret Service (aka "Regent's Park" after their primary location).
The Service, like everyone else was hamstrung by rules and regulations: sack the useless, and they take you to tribunal for discriminating against useless people. So the Service bunged the useless into some godforsaken annex and threw paperwork at them, an administrative harassment intended to make them hand in their cards. They called them the slow horses. The screw-ups. The losers ... and they belonged to Jackson Lamb.
In Dead Lions, a bogeyman emerges from the Cold War ether while an ambitious suit from Regent's Park cultivates a Russian oligarch as a future asset. The former is noticed only by Jackson Lamb due to his memories of the Spooks' Zoo (ie. East Berlin). And since times are fiscally austere, the latter entails roping in two slow horses to do the work.
He said, "I was thinking last time we got dragged into a Regent's Park op, someone was looking to screw us over."
For me, the plot overstretched reality and tripped over its too convenient coincidences into the farcical realm. As I said, Slow Horses had set a very high standard as its plot played just within its cynical parameters of reality. But I had to read Dead Lions because I was really curious about what direction Herron would take, such as whether there would be a redemption arc or any positive changes for this woebegone wing of MI5. Because about five months previously,
Slough House had briefly gone live. Things had settled since but optimism hadn't entirely died. They suspected that Jackson Lamb had serious dope on Diana Taverner; enough that, if she wasn't his sock puppet, she was at least in his debt.
And debt meant power.
Lady Di Taverner ... was one of several Second Desks, but top of most people's list whenever there were rumours of a Palace coup.
The strength of Dead Lions lies in Herron's development of his characters and their interactions because this novel is funnier and snarkier than its predecessor. The slow horses are no longer so solitary in their broodings after the events of previous year.
... but there was a base line these days that hadn't always been there, and it was simply stated: Cartwright was a slow horse, same as himself, same as Louisa. Once, that hadn't meant more than being tarred with the same brush. But now, if they didn't stick together exactly, they didn't piss on each other in front of others. Or not in front of Regent's Park suits, anyway.
Jackson Lamb is nothing like his surname. He's a bully with terrible personal hygiene and he whips out very non-pc cracks. But his string of slow horses, now augmented by two more, still retain a spark of spirit because they know that Lamb is a spook, and a very good one at that.
"I'll do it," River said again.
"... this is MI5, not a kiddies' playground. Operational decisions don't turn on who says bagsies. I decide who goes." Lamb counted them off from the right. "Eenie meenie minie mo." At mo, his finger rested on River. He moved it back to Shirley. "Meenie. You're it."
River said, "I was mo!"
"And I don't base operational decisions on children's games, remember?"
I usually write a review immediately after I complete a book. But I went ahead and finished all seven novels in the Slough House series before backtracking to review this one. Herron had created something quite special with this series, which I had recognized with the first installment. I can imagine that a sequel poses a big challenge for an author because it's time to commit to a direction, which might explain why three years had elapsed between the first two novels. This is my least favorite in this series and that's only because of the main plot. But Dead Lions introduces two more key characters and reinforces a major theme in the series regarding the long reach of spook history and its consequences. This series is a new favorite which is why I'm rounding my rating up to 4 stars.
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2nd Reading -
As spies play their game of mirrors, not everyone will be reflected in the most dazzling light. Herron further plumbs people's motivations, and nefarious plots subsequently arise. The psychological darkness is mitigated by the sweetness of two key relationships. In
Dead Lions, David Cartwright, a legend of the service, is introduced via visits from River. David has been grooming his only grandson in his professional interests. I'm leaving the second relationship for the reader to discover.
Herron revels in up-ending presumptions. Things are either not what they seem or are more complex than anticipated. One case in point is Catherine Standish, whom Lamb disparaged as his Miss Havisham, but Herron revealed her to be savvy and astute. Since
Slow Horses, Catherine has not been allowed to fade into the woodwork.
As I had mentioned, the ending of
Slow Horses created some expectations for
Dead Lions. Herron is too creative by half to meet those "typical" conjectures, but he fulfilled the most important one -- for a funny and cynical sequel with further character development.
*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*
Listed in GR sequence, but not necessarily in chronological order:
#1
Slow Horses 4 ☆
#2.5
The List 4 ☆
#3
Real Tigers 4.5 ☆
#4
Spook Street 5 ☆
#5
London Rules 4.5 ☆
#5.5
Marylebone Drop 4 ☆
#6
Joe Country 5 ☆
#6.5
The Catch 4 ☆
#7
Slough House 4.5 ☆
#8
Bad Actors 4 ☆ -
Dead Lions is the second in the Slough House series, which is based on disgraced MI5 agents called slow horses. Most of the slow horses from the first book are here, along with the addition of two new ones. It seems there is a good supply of them.
As in the first book, these spies just can't help themselves. They sneak around, spy on each other, listen through closed doors, and do anything other than the boring work assigned to them. They absolutely distrust the higher-ups in MI5, but would love to be back there. The boss is Jackson Lamb, and he recognizes a name from the past who has recently been found dead on a bus. Thus starts their illicit investigation.
I enjoyed this book just as much as the first. I like the characters a lot. I like the humorous, snarky, sarcastic dialog. I like how the author presents several “fronts” where characters are handling certain tasks and how those “fronts” all come together to reveal the nefarious plans of their opponents.
I plan to read The List, a #2.5 novella shortly. And I’m looking forward to reading the remainder of the series. -
If you like characters richly drawn, vivid, snarky descriptions and convoluted plots, this is the book for you. The second in the Slough House series, it paints a story where an old Cold War spy turns up dead on a bus and Jackson Lamb suspects that he was murdered. A trail of clues turns up like breadcrumbs down a path. The clues point to a Russian spy “legend” who inspired stories but was never thought to truly exist, Alexander Popov.
Meanwhile, two of the crew have been requisitioned to help Spider Web, the politically motivated spy master wannabe, “babysit” a Russian oligarch coming to London. The reader can see the two stories have to connect, the joy is in seeing how.
These are such fabulous characters. The “slow horses” have all fallen from grace, either through their own screw ups or because they got in the way of someone else’s climb up the ladder. They lack the polish of the spies on Regent’s Park. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have the smarts to see that things aren’t what they seem.
The writing and descriptions are perfect. The spy world is described as a “mirror game”, a protest as a “rainbow coalition of the pissed off”.
Michael Healy is the perfect narrator for this series. -
This was an excellent sequel to the brilliant
Slow Horses. Jackson Lamb and his team of misfits, exiled by MI5 to the backwaters of Slough House, are back at their desks churning through paperwork when an ex-cold war spy is killed on a bus. Jackson Lamb believes his death may be linked to an old Russian spy network that may or may not have existed and the 'slow horses' suddenly find themselves involved in an operation. River Cartwright is dispatched to a sleepy village to hunt for Russian spies while two of Lamb's team are seconded by Spider Webb to help him recruit a wealthy Russian businessman.
This is a complex, multilayered plot that unfolds carefully to pull all the threads together into a thrilling conclusion with enough twists and underhand deals to keep you guessing. The characters are the real strength of this series, particularly the shambolic smoking, drinking, farting, bacon-sandwich eating Lamb who looks incompetent but whose brain is as sharp as ever and remembers everything. River and the rest of the team are keen to work together to redeem themselves with MI5 in the hope that they'll be invited back to head office. Throughout a dry wit and dark humour keeps the characters and their exploits grounded and makes this a very entertaining read.
With thanks to Netgalley and Hachette for a digital copy of this book. -
Enjoyed Book 2 even more!
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This is the second in the Slough House series, where the ‘Slow Horses’ reside – those M15 operatives who have made mistakes and have been shunted off to do administrative tasks. Slough House is presided over by Jackson Lamb, who, although now he appears to be slovenly, unkempt and cruelly sarcastic, was once an undercover operative during the Cold War and, despite his appearances, is not only still quite capable of out manoeuvring those at the Park, but he is fiercely loyal to those he is responsible for and anyone he considers to be one of his own.
One such was Richard Bough, obviously known as ‘Dickie Bow,’ who was an operative long ago. Still, being a spook, even if you are pensioned off, leaves its mark and when Dickie spots a face he recognises from the past, he immediately begins shadowing him and, when Dickie is found dead, Lamb is not convinced his death was natural. In a separate storyline, Min Harper and Louise Guy are seconded by River Cartwright’s old enemy, Spider, to babysit a Russian oligarch, who is visiting London for, ‘talks about talks.’ All of the Slow Horses are desperate to go back into the field and some of them will get the chance in this book.
Author Mick Herron has created a realistic spy setup, which is less James Bond and more Harry Palmer. There is always the threat of cuts and cost cutting, there is a lot of dark humour and there is real danger. Characters in these novels, and in Slough House, change and that is because there is a very real possibility that they could get killed. A desk is empty and becomes filled by someone else and you realise that these novels work so well because of their sense of realism and the wonderful menace of Lamb, when he shuffles out of his lair and prepares to do battle… The two storylines in this novel are soon linked and there is an exciting and action packed finale, but the real joy of these books are in the characters. -
As Dickie Bow followed the hood, keeping him/it in sight, it felt good to be back on the job – even though no one else knew about it. The problem with the trains meant the frustrated commuters queued to catch the replacement buses, so Dickie kept the hood in view and stepped onto the same bus, sitting two seats behind him.
But when Dickie was found dead at the end of the route, Jackson Lamb – head of Slough House, where the disgraced MI5 spies were put out to pasture – was positive Dickie had been murdered. And he knew he needed to find the answers. His misfit agents in their search for the truth found a dark web of Cold War secrets. Danger was afoot; people would die; but Lamb wanted to know - did Dickie die of natural causes, or was it murder?
Humerous and dark, Dead Lions by Mick Herron is the 2nd in the Slough House series and though there are many characters, the odious Jackson Lamb stands out. Always one step ahead of the rest, with his often rude and snarky comments he runs Slough House with aplomb. Twists and turns are littered with dry humour and sarcasm – the plot is complex and entertaining. Highly recommended.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital copy to read and review. -
"Dead Lions," Molly said.
"What about them?"
"It's a kids' party game. You have to pretend to be dead. Lie still. Do nothing."
4.5★ - & it possibly would have been higher if I had read the first book,
Slow Horses. Possibly. There are a couple of loose threads towards the end of the book that bothered me a bit.
So I'm rating on what I experienced, & for me the start was very confusing, but this thriller went on to be fast paced, exciting & very hard to put down. It was also full of lines that made me giggle.Lamb stood, gazed at the nearest tree as if in sudden awe of nature, lifted a heel from the ground and farted.
"Sign of a good curry," he said, "Sometimes they just bubble about inside you for ages."
"I keep meaning to ask why you have never married," River said.
River. The cast of this book have great names & nicknames like Dicky Bow & "Spider" Webb. Herron is a modern Dickens in this regard. Based on this book, I think this series would film really well, & hope that the Slow Horses mentioned on IMDB is the one from this series - & I almost never want to see books I enjoy filmed. But I think the BBC could make a good series of this one.
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A face in the crowd, a blast from the past, and washed up MI5, Cold War spy, Dickie Bow, is off pursuing an old Russian nemesis. Regent Park, MI5 headquarters, has their own Russian oligarch to follow and what ensues is a smoke and mirrors game that involves Jackson Lamb and his dishonored staff from Slough House.
I’m not sure who is more despicable - the belching, chain smoking Jackson Lamb or Roddy Ho, the arrogant, anti-social, internet geek. But, they both have enviable characteristics and this just goes to show how creative Herron’s characterizations are.
What a fun series this is! -
Reread July 2022
... On a reread we can see exactly how clever Herron is in placing all the pieces in precisely the right place for the story to unravel to plan. However, I can't help feeling that the Pashkin strand is just a little too clever for its own good. On the other hand, the Popov story is brilliant: the tangled identities, the cicadas, the village
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In this second of his Slough House series, Herron gives us another sly take on the old skool spy novel lifting it into something contemporary. The set-up is that Slough House is where the washed-up spies go, the ones who have made a spectacular mistake such as leaving a top-secret file on the Tube, or spending their days gambling or drinking before being caught. Now under the malign management of the brilliantly-conceived Jackson Lamb, the under-dogs come into their own against MI5 when a man is found dead on a bus in Oxford leaving a cryptic clue about a mythical KGB sleeper plot.
I would strongly recommend that you read Slow Horses first as the wonderful characters are delineated there in more detail. Herron writes with real character and flair, and his sardonic narrative voice is one of the things that makes these books so clever and enjoyable. One of his tricks is to take an established thriller plot (the kidnapping by extremists in the first book; a long-secret KGB plot here) and give it a twist, then another, so that it feels fresh again. He's also not afraid to kill off main characters so we can't relax and take anything for granted here, and the combination of real risk and danger with a cynical sense of humour and a murky sense of realpolitik makes these books topical and contemporary.
A fresh and refreshing take on the spy novel. -
Dead Lions is the second novel in the Slough House series by British author, Mick Herron. Slough House is where the spook screw-ups from MI5 who, for some reason or other, can’t be sacked, are sent. There they are set such tedious, mind-numbing tasks it’s hoped they will be fed-up enough to quit. Slough House doesn’t have a big staff, currently just seven under the control of Jackson Lamb. They had a bit of unexpected action a few months ago, so there are empty desks and a few new faces.
Ordinarily, there are no ops from Slough House: the Slow Horses can’t be trusted with anything that matters. But the recent death, on a bus, of Cold War spy, Dickie Bow has Jackson Lamb looking closer, and soon his smartest young spy, River Cartwright is in place in a sleepy Cotswolds village trying to track down a Russian agent. Meanwhile, two of Lamb’s slow horses are seconded by River’s nemesis at Regent’s Park, James (Spider) Webb, for “babysitting” duty in Russian oil talks. Is there a connection?
Once again, Herron gives the reader a fast-paced spy novel of a very different sort. The premise is original, and the execution is inspired. The characters are all credibly flawed, their dialogue is full of dry wit, and there is plenty of humour, most of it very black and very British, with an abundance of laugh out loud moments. There are twists and red herrings and the reader will find it hard not to cheer these misfits on as they do their best. Readers will be pleased to learn there are two and a half further volumes of this series for their entertainment and enjoyment. Another brilliant read! -
This is the 2nd book in the Slough House series by author Mick Herron.
I appear to be in the minority but I personally struggled to connect with this novel and found it hard work. Thankfully for the author there are plenty of people who disagree with me but an honest review is what I promised.
Slough House is where all failed MI5 spies go to carry out trivial chores because they have messed up on the job. One thing they all have in common, though, is they all want to be back in the action. When an old Cold War-era spy is found dead on a bus outside Oxford, far from his usual haunts. The despicable, irascible Jackson Lamb is convinced Dickie Bow was murdered. The agents uncover a shadowy tangle of ancient Cold War secrets that seem to lead back to a man named Alexander Popov, who is either a Soviet bogeyman or the most dangerous man in the world.
I liked the idea of failed spies trying to resurrect their careers and there were some very promising characters in the book, but maybe a few too many to keep track of. I am not put off easily and will try another one in the series and who knows I may be converted.
I would like to thank Net Galley and John Murray Press for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. -
Segunda parte de la saga de los 'caballos lentos', esos espías metepatas que han sido confinados a una especie de oficina siniestra, Slough House (la Casa de la Ciénaga), donde su principal función es no hacer nada. Aquí los vamos conociendo más a fondo, algunos que ya aparecían en la primera parte,
Caballos lentos, y otros son nuevos fichajes.
También en este caso los caballos lentos se implicarán en la resolución de una conspiración, que aquí implica a antiguos espías soviéticos de los años de la Guerra Fría.
Me ha resultado entretenida y a ratos muy divertida, con un humor muy British; casi me ha gustado más que la primera parte.
3,5* -
Una verdadera gozada. Novela de espías con el toque de humor británico que te hace devorar las páginas con una continua sonrisa. Para pasar un buen rato, galería de personajes maravillosos encabezados por un Jackson Lamb sublime . Muy recomendable.
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2 stars
This starts out reasonably well, with an old-time Le Carré atmosphere updated to modern London. However, halfway through, the wobbly plot gets stupid-silly, and the characters turn into cartoons.
There was more humour starting in the second 1/4 and continuing some of the way through. Herron's wit and humour are pretty good. This is often good fun, without detracting from the seriousness of the mystery and spycraft!
Nice moment of history for River:
River Cartwright was a spook because that’s what his grandfather was. Not had been: was. Some professions you never gave up, long after they were over. David Cartwright was a Service legend, but the way he told it, the same held true for the lowliest bagman: you could change sides, sell your secrets, offer your memoirs to the highest bidder, but once a spook you were always a spook, and everything else was just cover.
Cute:
Women were born spooks, and could smell betrayal before it happened.
River's grandad, the O.B., considering River's suspicions about Lamb...
That woodlouse: it had scuttered about in evident fear, and at the last second had thrown itself into the flames below, as if death were preferable to the moments spent waiting for it.
Alexander Popov hadn’t existed. He wondered if that were still the case. He continued to stare into the dying fire for some while. But in the way of things that were dying, it didn’t reveal anything he didn’t already know.
At about halfway through, both Taverner and Webb agree to the silliest and most outrageous cartoon operation to recruit a Russian bigwig. No way any sane person would agree to any of this, no matter how avaricious and power-hungry.
From there on, the plot gets sillier and sillier, more and more chaotic and choppy. By the last 1/4 of the book, the point of view changes with almost every paragraph. What a nasty, stupid mess.
Ugh.
Notes:
5.0% ".... I'm reminded of the London
"Poison-tip umbrella assassination of Georgi Markov" here."
25.0% "Much more assured than "Slow Horses", with good pacing, interesting expansion of the main characters, and a good central mystery. Great stuff!"
57.0% ".. I'm insulted by the stupidity of "the Needle" sub-plot, and that even with insane lust for power, anyone over the age of 8 would fall for this crap. Bad deal,Herron. Ugh"
58.0% "... But it was like being in New York, where someone could ask you the time in a way that suggested you’d just punched their mother."
66.0% "... far less happy with this now. Plot keeps getting sillier."
76.0% "... again, my least favourite lazy writing tactic: To have a character see or hear something that the author withholds. Grrrrrrr"
78.0% "... Herron blatantly steals the "Molly" character from Le Carré. Too blatant to be homage. Ugh"
81.0% "... all shoe and no footprint...
Similar to Texas "all hat and no cattle"..."
89.0% "... incredibly choppy, confused climax. A cartoon spy story of laughable stupidity. Ugh."
. -
I had to do a fair bit of re-winding while listening to this book of intrigue, as I needed to pay attention to the details to understand what was going on! Great writing and a narrator with a nuanced voice meant re-listening was a joy rather than a chore.
Here are some examples of the writing that truly flowed and held my interest:
"His gaze turned towards the windows. These overlooked the park across the road, and because it was mid-morning there was a lot of pre-school traffic out there: women, prams, toddlers exploring grass verges. A car backfired and a flock of pigeons erupted, swam a figure eight through the air and resettled on the lawn."
"Dark night air rushed in eager to explore this brand new space."
"What's left of our careers will be spent sorting the post. That's what keeps life interesting on the hub." -
London slept, but fitfully, its every other eye wide open. The ribbon of light atop the Telecom Tower unfurled again and again, traffic lights blinked through unvarying sequence, and electronic posters affixed to bus stops rotated and paused, rotated and paused, drawing an absent public's attention to unbeatable mortgage deals. There were fewer cars, playing louder music, and the bass pulse that trailed in their wake pounded the road long after they'd gone. From the zoo leaked muffled shrieks and strangled growls. And on a pavement obscured by trees, leaning on a railing, a man smoked a cigarette, the light at its tip glowing brighter then dying, brighter then dying, as if he too were part of the city's heartbeat, performing the same small actions over and over, all through the watches of the night.
Dead Lions, like Slow Horses before it, is a pretty understated, British, spy novel (and I maintain that there's a lot they have in common with portal fantasies). There's a definite irreverential quality to this series - both book refuse to take too much seriously, including themselves. At the same time, though, there's real stakes, and the potential for things to go wrong isn't understated. How those two qualities don't clash is a tribute to the author and his ability to balance mood like a tightrope walker - it's a quality that tends to pop up in British media, that dark light-heartedness, and when it's done well it's so satisfying.
The plot itself was pretty great - there's some smoke and mirrors going on, a nice amount of clues dropped in to let you have the a-ha moment when you figure out how you were misled, and most of the characters are quietly likeable. They're far from perfect, Dead Lions makes a point of repeating the premise out loud that Slough House is staffed by screwups. Even the more unlikeable characters (there's some interesting language thrown around in this one) have moments of humanity, even if it is a lapse from their usual sociopathy.
These novels read fast, are self-contained but with characters to follow over the series, and when I'm in the mood are just the ticket. -
I loved Slow Horses, the first book in this series, so much that I picked this up as soon as I finished the other. And it didn't disappoint.
Same acerbic, entertaining writing with an even more convoluted plot that flashes back to the Cold War. Many of the same characters from Slow Horses, with a few additions. Same slimy bureaucracy in place at MI5, with plenty of characters you love to hate.
It's going to be fun making my way through the series. -
I'm really enjoying this darkly comic spy series. Brutal plotting, sardonic narrative, some very funny lines and an exciting twisty plot. Author isn't afraid to kill off important people, which keeps us on our toes, and the lack of sentiment between the ill assorted gang of 'slow horses' ie failed MI5 agents is deeply satisfying. Excellent stuff.
-
November 27, 2022 Update The full official trailer for Slow Horses Season 2 (streaming as of December 2, 2022) of the AppleTV+ adaptation of Dead Lions is now up at
YouTube. The teaser trailer is also still available (see Trivia and Links below).
The Slow Horses Return
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. 1st* audiobook edition (May 2013) narrated by
Michael Healy of the original Soho Constable hardcover (May 2013)Anonymous villain: I want the professional humiliation of you and your team.
Jackson Lamb: My team have already humiliated themselves. That's why they're my team. - quote from the TV adaptation of "Dead Lions" (to be seen as Season 2 of "Slow Horses")“Dead lions,” Molly said.
“What about them?”
“It’s a kids’ party game. You have to pretend to be dead. Lie still. Do nothing.”
“What happens when the game’s over?” Lamb asked.
“Oh,” she said. “I expect all hell breaks loose.” - excerpt from the "Dead Lions" book.
The main cast of Season 1 of the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses with (L to R) Jack Lowden as River Cartwright, Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, Olivia Cooke as Sidonie 'Sid' Baker, Rosalind Eleazar as Louisa Guy, Saskia Reeves as Catherine Standish, and Dustin Demri-Burns as Min Harper. Image sourced from
JustWatch.com.
The "Slow Horses" are a motley group from the British Security Services who for various reasons (e.g. bungled field assignments, alcoholism, poor social skills, etc.) have been pushed aside from head office or field operations and sent to work at Slough House, a pre-retirement resting stop of paper pushing & electronic surveillance to keep them out of the way of their supposed betters.
Dead Lions is the 2nd book of the series and carries on with most of the same principle cast including Roddy Ho, the Slow Horse hacker extraordinaire and Diana Taverner (aka Lady Di aka Second Desk), who is the Bête Noire of Regent's Park head office to Jackson Lamb and his Slow Horses of Slough House.
The plot starts with a retired British Intelligence field agent being found dead on a bus. Jackson Lamb suspects there is more to the death than it seems and the team of Slow Horses are dispersed undercover in various assignments to dig further. Eventually an entire nest of sleeper agents (aka the Dead Lions of the title) are uncovered and a possible terror attack on central London is threatened. Can the Slow Horses figure it all out and stop it in time? Or will Regent's Park head office muscle in to take the credit?
Trivia and Links
* There will be a 2nd audiobook edition (not yet listed on GR as of today's writing) of Dead Lions narrated by the series now regular narrator
Gerard Doyle to be released May 18, 2022.
Cover image of the 2nd Audiobook edition. Image sourced from Audible.
Dead Lions will be the basis for Season 2 of the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses (2022 - ?), for which you can watch the Season 2 teaser trailer on YouTube
here. The Season 1 trailer is still on YouTube
here. -
Mick Herron wrote a two-book Slough House series featuring River Cartwright which began with
Slow Horses and ended with
Dead Lions. ‘Slow Horses’ is a nickname given to disgraced spies who live out the rest of what might generously be termed their careers in the MI5 Slough House, as opposed to working in pin-stripes at Regent’s Park. Too knowledgeable to be cut loose and too damaged to handle edgy assignments, these talented but dismissed spies are called upon in Dead Lions to chase a ghost—a Russian spy long hidden from view.
I’ve been reading backward through Herron’s work, beginning with his soon-to-be released
Nobody Walks published by Soho Crime, which is a cornucopia of rich characterizations, cynical observations about the business of spying, and imaginative spycraft. I have not gotten to Slow Horses but I can tell you that these works are all of a piece. River Cartwright was ostensibly the main man in the first two books, though his involvement was not as pronounced in Dead Lions as Tom Bettany’s is in Nobody Walks.
Mick Herron has an eye for the ways individuals can look absurd in large bureaucratic organizations: who gets ahead, who stays ahead, and who stays alive are all subject to his scrutiny and imaginative doodlings. The failings of ordinary folk provide a rich vein of material.
Dead Lions is written like the screenplay for a TV series in that much of the novel is conversation. Unless one is a Londoner, this presents a little bit of a challenge in being able to follow the action especially when being told by a cynical and wily old sidelined spy. One never knows what is true and what is not even if one understands his language. When one grows up in an organization, there is a specific vocabulary for insiders. If one is not part of the group, understanding can be as difficult as crashing a company’s Christmas cocktail party. But like that theoretical Christmas party, if one holds on long enough for understanding to dawn, the ride is quite fun enough.
Herron is good at writing spy thrillers, very good, indeed. If this is your special genre, his books are a must-read. If British spy thrillers are only an occasional treat for you, he is still one of the best, and getting better all the time. Start with
Nobody Walks. -
This series is turning out to be such a treat, with this second instalment equally as thrilling and funny as the first.
The slow horses, led by Jackson Lamb, have settled back down after their unprecedented operational antics of the previous book, but the underlings still remember what it felt like to be part of something, and working as a team. So when a Cold War era British spy turns up dead on a train-replacement bus, without a ticket, eyebrows are raised and some low-key investigations begin. Meanwhile, Spider Webb has seconded two of the slow horses to manage security on a meeting with the owner of a Russian oil company. We also have two new team members - Shirley and Marcus - and nobody is really clear about why they have been relegated to Slough House, or indeed whether one of them is reporting back to MI5 second desk, Lady Di Taverner.
In this instalment, River is still champing at the bit for some action and a chance to redeem himself, Catherine steps up to take on an almost 2IC role while Lamb is in the field, and Roddy Ho is... still Roddy Ho.
Catherine knocked and entered. “You busy?” she said [to River]. “This can wait.”
“Ha bloody ha.”
Catherine fills River in on what she knows about the dead spy:
“So why’s Lamb interested?” River mused.
“No idea. Maybe they worked together.” She paused. “A note says he was a talented streetwalker. That doesn’t mean what it sounds like, does it?”
Once the two are both up to speed, they approach Lamb:
Lamb’s door was open. Catherine tapped, and they went in. Lamb was trying to turn his computer on: he still wore his coat and an unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth. He eyed them as if they were Mormons. “What’s this, an intervention?”
When Lamb realises two of his horses have had the temerity to check up on him:
Lamb shook his head in disbelief. “What happened? Someone come round and sew your balls back on? I told you not to answer the door to strangers.”
“We don’t like being out of the loop.”
“You’re always out of the loop. The loop’s miles away. Nearest you’ll get to being in the loop is when they make a documentary about it and show it on the History Channel. I thought you were aware of that."
I could go on, there's just so much humour in Herron's writing, but I won't.
But it's not all laughs, there are some pretty tense moments and lots of thrills. And much like the writers of one of my favourite TV series of all time, Spooks, Herron is not afraid to kill off his characters if need be...
Hopefully there's a lot more to come in this series. On to #2.5 next! -
A real struggle to read this book, too many characters introduced too early on, then a really dry read in my opinion
-
“Dead lions,” Molly said.
“What about them?”
“It’s a kid’s party game. You have to pretend to be dead. Lie still. Do nothing.”
“What happens when the game’s over?”Lamb asked.
“Oh,” she said. “I expect all hell breaks loose.”
In real life, when grown-ups are playing, such games turn deadly.
The first victim is an ex-MI5 agent, a minor cog from the Berlin Station who was let go after 1990 for drunkenness. He is found dead on a bus from London to Oxford, apparently from a heart attack. Nobody seems to care, one way or another, despite the red flags that should go up when a former agent dies unexpectedly.
Nobody but Jackson Lamb, head honcho of Slough House, the place where failed spies go to pasture.
The Service, like everyone else, was hamstrung by regulations: sack the useless, and they took you to tribunal for discriminating against useless people. So the Service bunged the useless into some godforsaken annex and threw paperwork at them, an administrative harassment intended to make them hand in their cards. They called them the slow horses. The screw-ups. The losers.
The reason why Lamb is managing Slough House is not entirely clear, so far into the series, but his unusual management style and his private sense of right and wrong launch us into the hunt for a dead lion, some ghost from the past that decided it wants to create some disturbance in the present.
“A circus? This guy planted one of ours. If we let that happen without, what would you call it, due diligence? We let that happen without checking out who, what and why, then we’re not only not doing our job, we’re letting down our people.”
“Bow wasn’t our people any more.”
“It doesn’t work that way, and you know it.”
While Jackson Lamb is on the trail of the suspected murderer, he unleashes the young and eager River Cartwright to investigate a small village in the picture-postcard Cotswolds that the suspect apparently was heading for. But is this a false trail, or is something more underhanded going on?
Meanwhile, two other slow horses are recruited by an agent from Regent’s Park, home of the official MI5 spooks, to oversee a meeting with a high level source from Moscow, set up in the new London landmark known as The Shard.
[from my visit to London this January]
“Babysitting. Hardly high excitement.”
Min and Louisa, secret lovers and bored by endless paperwork sent their way by the Service, agree to act as minders for two Russian bodyguards ahead of the planned meeting. It’s not like they have anything better to do...
This many people had made the return journey from Slough House to the Park: none. They both knew that. But like every slow horse before them, Min and Louisa hid secret hopes their story would be different.
Could the two actions be related? Or is this just a coincidence: that old agents from before the fall of the Berlin Wall are suddenly relevant, somehow?
The Cold War was the natural state of affairs.
Mick Herron does something here an old hand at spy thrillers like me no longer expects: a realistic setting, with believable characters, a plot that doesn’t go for the Hollywood pastiche that kind of ruined the James Bond franchise. An original story, that may rely a little too much on Cold War tropes, yet manages to surprise the reader with its explosive conclusion. A level-headed look at how intelligence agencies work, with all their entrenched bureaucracy and internal rivalries exposed. A fine example of British black humour and stiff-upper lip bulldog perseverance.
“That old saw about law and sausages, about how you never want to see either being made? The same applies to intelligence work.”
Mick Herron is showing us how the sausages are made and, as promised, it is not a pretty picture. Part of my interest in the series, as in other similar thrillers, is in the closed set of Slough House, with its oddball inhabitants send down there for their sins, who somehow manage to work together with Lamb and solve their cases, despite being offered the lowest odds before the start line. It’s been only two episodes so far, but I liked the return of River Cartwright, Catherine Standish, Roddy Ho and the rest of the slow horses.
I am even tempted to check out the TV series based on the novels.
>>><<<>>><<<
I tried to say as little as possible about the actual plot, because this is after all a high-speed thriller, but I would like to mention the author’s keen sense of the metaphor, as in ‘dead lions’, ‘black swans’ [things are not what they seem], and ‘cicadas’ [as in sleeper agents who hide for years underground, only to emerge and lay waste to crops.]
If you want to find out how these concepts apply to the story, you better read the damn novel. -
*
https://theburgeoningbookshelf.blogsp...
Dead Lions is the second book in the Slough House series. Slough (pronounced slow) House is the MI5 dumping ground for screw-ups. Jackson Lamb and his band of misfits are joined by two new members to the team.
The teams main job is to complete paper work and endless amounts of data entry but they live in hope of one day returning to head office.
Mick Herron gives the reader a look at some of the characters personal lives and it seems their work misfortune flows over to their everyday life. They all really do come across as a bunch of losers but you can’t help but have some affection for them.
When Min and Louisa are seconded to H.O. to babysit a Russian security team they think this may be their big break.
A long dead myth emerges once again after many years and an old street hand is found dead. Lamb believing he could have been murdered starts an investigation of his own.
The story is told in dual plot lines that cleverly connect for an adrenaline filled, explosive ending.
Herron includes his own brand of humour with sarcasm, hypotheticals and a wry wit that had me laughing out loud throughout the story. The atmosphere is perfectly set for a spy novel on the dimly lit, fog filled streets of London.
Lamb is rude and abrupt to his fellow workers but when it comes to the crunch he is on their side. He is arrogant and oafish but he has an inexplicable appeal.
Herron doesn’t baulk at killing off his characters – Slough House is staffed by crew-ups and there is no shortage of replacements.
This is a must read series! Slough House has been made into a TV series, titled Slow Horses after the first book, on Apple TV starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.
