| Title | : | Nobody Walks |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1616954868 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781616954864 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 296 |
| Publication | : | First published February 17, 2015 |
Now for the first time since he cut all ties years ago, Bettany returns home to London to find out the truth about his son's death. Maybe it's the guilt he feels about losing touch with his son that's gnawing at him, or maybe he's actually put his finger on a labyrinthine plot, but either way he'll get to the bottom of the tragedy, no matter whose feathers he has to ruffle. But more than a few people are interested to hear Bettany is back in town, from incarcerated mob bosses to those in the highest echelons of MI5. He might have thought he'd left it all behind when he first skipped town, but nobody really just walks away.
Nobody Walks Reviews
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Mick Herron is rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors. I loved his Slough House series, am currently enjoying his Oxford Investigations series and totally enjoyed this stand alone book. I have only one complaint - his books and his series are not long enough.
I read
Nobody Walks in one afternoon. It was dark, funny and totally unputdownable. There were even links to Slough House which was great. I enjoyed the writing which is always to the point, the humour which is often very British and the characters. We hardly meet Flea but she is delightful. Tom Bettany is one of those main characters you could make a series about. And as for Dame Ingrid Tearney - well...…
I think you can tell that I am a fan. I hope Mr. Herron is very busy writing more books. -
My first and last, Mick Herron as the pace is too slow for my tastes. 2 of 10 stars
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4★
“In the morning London exhaled, and its breath was foul. It swam upwards from drains and gutters. It formed pockets of gas in corners, and burst in noxious clouds from cars’ rear ends.
By eight the first swell of workers had flooded the city and the second was gathering force. The underground, arteries hardening, was a wheezing queue of trains in the which passengers, squeezed into awkward shapes, counted down the stations of the cross.”
I can smell and taste Mick Herron’s London, and sometimes it’s pretty awful. Some of the people are, too. This book opens in another pretty awful place with a man in France whose mindless job it is to carry cartons of freshly packed meat to be carted away in lorries. At the end of the day, he hoses the yard, “blasting every scrap of matter down the drains.”
Blech. When he gets a phone call from a stranger to say his son has died after falling from his balcony, Bettany heads back to London. He and Liam hadn’t spoken in a long time, and when they did speak, it was mostly so Liam could accuse him of neglecting, and therefore killing Liam’s mother, who died of cancer.
The first fifty or sixty pages were slow-going for me. Bettany seemed unpleasant and uninteresting. But I trusted Mick Herron wouldn’t let me down. This is not like the Slough House series, except for some of the wonderful turns of phrase and some of the grittier action. It’s all third-person, so we can see different points of view and eavesdrop on the thoughts of a few characters, although you wouldn’t really want to live in the heads of any of them, including Bettany.
I never did warm to the people, but I did find it intriguing discovering the connections between them. There’s a gaming mogul, for whom his son worked, and some kind of criminal network that he wonders if his son was connected to. We see a couple of those crims discussing a bigger network.
“‘And these guys, they’re all business. You know that.’
He knew that, as much as anyone knew anything about the Cousins’ Circle, which was Russian based, multiethnic, multinational, and enjoyed the double charm of having its existence doubted as much as its reach was feared.
. . .
‘This is good business, . . . The Circle, they’re Google. They’re Apple. You don’t want to go head to head with them. You want to stand shoulder to shoulder.’”
Obviously, the pace picks up as we watch Bettany begin using old skills and connections. He was in France for a reason – leaving behind an old life (the one where he neglected his wife and son), but never really finding another. He’s certainly not satisfied with anything he accomplished in the past, either.
“He’d spent the better part of a decade taking [X X] off the board only to find that others had filled the gap. The world might technically be a safer place, but you’d need pretty sophisticated measuring equipment to be sure.”
It’s a bit grim, but a good read, and there are even a few passing references to some Slough House characters, which is fun for fans like me.
I recommend his Slough House series, if you haven't met those fabulous characters yet.
Slow Horses -
My review
Dead Lions -
My review
Real Tigers -
My review
Spook Street -
My review
London Rules -
My review
Joe Country -
My review -
I accidently started this thinking it was part of the Slough House series. It involves a retired spook, but not a slow horse. Tom Bettany returns to England after receiving word that his estranged son died after falling off his balcony. As the undercover agent who helped put two crime family kingpins away, there are quite a few people interested in his return. That seems to include MI5 who have him on their radar.
This is a slow paced book. But I found Bettany an interesting character, so I stuck with it. There’s a very subtle humor here. The ending was perfect and as complicated as Herron’s books always are. He doesn’t go for the easy way.
Gerald Doyle is the narrator. I've always enjoyed his performances and here as well. -
This short stand-alone novel is not part of the Slough House series that features Jackson Lamb and his band of failed spies but is written in the same MI5 universe. Dame Ingrid Tearney is still Head (first desk) and busy weaving the devious webs that will lead to her eventual downfall.
Englishman Tom Bettany, has been hiding from his past in Europe, living in hovels and working menial jobs, but returns to England when told his estranged son Liam has died. The official story is that he fell off the balcony of his flat while smoking a particularly strong batch of weed. However, not all the facts stack up for Tom and he begins his own investigation into Liam’s friends, colleagues and his boss Vincent Driscoll at the software development company where he worked. When he receives a message from MI5 that Driscoll is off limits his suspicions are immediately raised, but he also wonders if he is being manipulated.
As others in London become aware of Tom Bettany’s return, his quest for vengeance for his son also turns him into the hunted. There is plenty of action, some unexpected twists and humour (albeit more subtle than in the Slough House series) before all the pieces slot into place for Tom. For those who have read the Slough House series (highly recommended!) there is also a delightful scene which explains how J.K Coe became the shivering mess who ended up being sent to join Lamb’s troupe of misfits. -
My history with Mick Herron's books, and the fact that this one was published in 2015 during the Slough House series that I so love, led me to expect great things from this book. It met every expectation I had.
Characterization was excellent. Dialogue was brisk and witty. The plot was tightly woven. Any break I took from reading this book was forced upon me. I did not want to set it down. When my snoring lemon woke me last night, I made reading lemonade until I fell asleep with the book on my belly. I am one happy Mick Herron fan. -
almost 4 ☆
That was how the young saw things. If that, then this. If this, then the next thing. Life, to the inexperienced, happened in straight lines.
Herron must have been feeling younger than his years when he wrote Nobody Walks. Because compared with the intricate and byzantine plots in his Slough House novels, Nobody Walks appeared as a straightforward hunt of a father on a vigilante crusade after the killer of his only son. Of course, there were some truly unexpected surprises courtesy of Herron's imagination, but overall this was a revenge mission with some special challenges.
Thoughts became rituals in themselves. You plodded the same course over and over, like any dumb beast or wind-up toy.
At the time his 26 year old son Liam died, Thomas Bettany was a man in hiding. He lived sparingly, sharing a room in alternating half-day shifts with another person while working in an abattoir in Marseilles. His menial routine cloaked an unusual skill set that he had once expertly wielded for the British Security Service (ie. MI5).
Undercover, after all, was what Bettany did when his own life failed him. Undercover meant dropping out of sight, leading somebody else's life in a succession of foreign cities. It meant leaving everything behind.
Once upon a time, Bettany had gone undercover to put the McGarry Brothers in jail for their contribution to The Troubles. Although he had given his testimony behind a screen, there were many in the McGarry clan who would be quite pleased to get their hands on Bettany for betraying them. Only the death of his son was powerful enough motivation to return to the UK.
Long stretches of boredom interspersed with moments of panic. That too, summed up much of his own career.
He didn't often think about his past, but that too was the undercover mentality. The person you used to be was sealed off, boxed tight, locked shut, and you walked away. But nobody really walked.
But the McGarry clan wasn't the only party interested in Bettany's return to the UK. The Head of MI5, Dame Ingrid Tearney, and another recurring MI5 staffer also popped up. Tearney has been mentioned in the Slough House novels but usually from the perspective of her envious subordinate Diana Taverner. This was the first glimpse into her head and it was in keeping with somebody as the leader of a spook agency.
[Tearney] resembled the more benevolent kind of witch, the type to dish out helpful potions when love let you down.
Nobody Walks is a completely independent novel even though its MI5 is the same as the one in Herron's Slough House series. As a fan of the Slough House series, it is satisfying to learn more about one character's back story and just to get a broader glimpse of MI5 as conceived by Herron. However, the tone of this story is serious and intense. It didn't have as much humor, if any, as in the Slough House books, which I highly recommend. If the Slough House series had been written in this vein, I wouldn't enjoy it half as much. Nevertheless, Herron delivered a well-written cat-and-mouse-hunt mystery that's worth looking into. Chronologically, the events in Nobody Walks transpired in February, right before
Dead Lions. -
Damn, can Mick Herron ever write convoluted espionage novels! This one is not part of his Slough House series, but uses some of the same characters. If you've read the novella
The Catch, you'll recognize Herron reusing a device, that of a “retired" agent being put into play by a devious member of Regents Park.
I think that John Le Carre is one of the acknowledged masters of the spy novel, but his specialty was the Cold War era. For 21st century spies and politicians, I think the torch has been handed to Herron, who has run with it. His spy masters are admirable in their ability to think like the paranoid and uber-careful joes under their authority. The wheels within wheels of double-think seem obvious in retrospect, but would never be serious thoughts for me, a general member of the public. I admit to a bit of paranoia and some willingness to use social lies to get events to work out to my liking, but I am a rank amateur compared to these folk. It reminded me a lot of
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, with its complex motivations and use of an agent perhaps past his best-before date.
I am also a fan of the ambiguous ending, so despised by so many people. I think we can all agree that Tom Bettany isn't going to like whatever is coming. We don't need to “witness" the result to know that.
It is official for me now, I must read ALL of Herron's fiction.
Cross posted at my blog:
https://wanda-thenextfifty.blogspot.c... -
Although this is set in the same universe as the Slough House series, this book works as an adjunct rather than being a direct addition to the series: we learn the back story of JK Coe (who will join the Slow Horses in
Real Tigers) and penetrate far further into the Machiavellian mind of Dame Ingrid than perhaps we might want to.
This is a grim, grim story, without any of the humour that lightens the main Slough House series, or the of-the-moment political commentary that makes those books so relevant. It also serves as a fine riposte to series like 'Spooks' which gives us noble heroes putting their lives on the line for the greater good - here we're grubbing in the dirt and there's nothing to separate the Service under Ingrid Tearney's maleficent and self-serving rule from the East End gangsters and Russian mafia hoods she's supposedly fighting against.
Tom Bettany is almost a le Carré-esque character with his deep complexity, his existentialist crisis of identity, and his ultimate fate. As ever, Herron imbues the whole thing with a sense of authenticity and never needs to labour his points.
This is intense and emotionally powerful - and, as much as I love the Slough House books, this might just be my favourite Herron yet. -
In 2022 I re-read
Nobody Walks (2015) as part of a re-read of all of
Mick Herron's Slough House books. I'd forgotten just how good it is. Definitely worth a second read.
Although
Nobody Walks (2015) is not officially a Slough House novel, ideally it should be read after
Dead Lions (Slough House #2) (2013) and before
Real Tigers (Slough House #3) (2016).
Nobody Walks is listed on GoodReads as 2.6 in the series. So, to be even more precise, it should be between Dead Lions and Real Tigers but after the novella
The List (Slough House #2.5).
If you haven't read
Nobody Walks and you love the Slough House books then make a point of reading it. Both Ingrid Tearney and JK Coe feature. JK Coes first appears in
The List, and then in this, before finally appearing as one of the slow horses in
Real Tigers. In this book, readers discover what happened to JK Coe prior to becoming a slow horse and why he is a little, ahem, jumpy. Ingrid Tearney is at her manipulative and conniving best.
Even if Slough House means nothing to you I'd still recommend
Nobody Walks as a standalone thriller. It's very clever, has some good twists, and builds to a tense and satisfying conclusion.
4/5
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4.5★
While this short-ish book is not technically part of Herron's Slough House series, it is firmly situated in the same universe, with some characters and even some story threads in common. In my own mind it is #2.75 of Slough House. And it's a ripper! So even if you're further along in the series, do go back and catch up on this one.
A young game-developer falls to his death in suburban London. The official account is that he was high on a new, particularly strong blend of marijuana and fell from his own living room window. The police track down his estranged father, Tom Bettany, who's been living abroad for a few years working various manual labour jobs. But the thing is, Tom used to be a spy, working undercover for MI5 for many years, then a short stint with the Dogs, before leaving to try to live a normal life with his wife and son. His wife had died of cancer a few years ago, so the death of his son is a powerful drawcard to bring Tom home to England. There’d been a sharp rise in the number of women reading bondage porn in public, but other than that, London had stayed London.
The explanation of young Liam's death makes little sense to Tom, who begins to make enquiries of his own. Suspicion lands on Vincent Driscoll, Liam's rather odd games-designer boss, and this raises a red flag for MI5. With Driscoll having recently been vetted for national honours, Dame Ingrid Tearney wants to deal with the situation very discreetly, so she enlists JK Coe, a still wet-behind-the-ears officer from Psych Eval, to act as go-between. Tearney and Bettany are a match for each other, but only one of them knows what's really going on.
This had all the good things we expect from Herron - a tight plot, phenomenal pacing, some truly unexpected twists and turns, and the dark humour that sometimes makes you feel a bit guilty for enjoying. Because it's relatively short, it seemed a lot more focused than some of the Slough House novels, and that sets it up amongst my favourites from Herron. Highly recommended plus - do yourself a favour. -
I am a huge fan of the Slough House series and, having devoured the main books, went back to discover more by him – those books, like his novellas, which touch on the series, but move parallel to it or, like this title, flesh out some of the character’s back stories – in this case, that of J.K. Coe. In terms of where this sits, it is really best read between the second and third novels, “Dead Lions,” and “Real Tigers,” but, even though I have read it out of order, it works well.
Tom Bettany is an ex-agent, who learns of his estranged son’s death and returns to London in time for his funeral. Suspecting his son’s death was murder, Bettany goes in search of the culprit, which brings him to the attention of First Desk, Dame Ingrid Tearney. J.K.Coe finds himself pulled from behind a desk to do her bidding and his initial euphoria of being chosen by her, ends in fear and disillusionment, as we discover why he acts as he does in later books.
This is an involved novel, with several strands, which Mick Herron weaves together as only he can. I am constantly impressed by Herron’s ability to create this fictional world and make it realistic and dangerous. This lacks the dark humour of the Slough House series, but it is always good to visit, even if you are just on the periphery, while it was interesting to learn Coe’s history and understand him better. An enjoyable read, but the master of the spy genre. -
Nobody Walks is the second stand-alone novel by award-winning British author, Mick Herron. Tom Bettany barely makes it back to London for his son, Liam’s funeral. They were estranged for four years, Tom was out of the country, and a colleague of Liam’s rang to let him know. The calls from the police had been more vague, but when he arrived, DS Welles told him that Liam’s death was accidental: high on a particularly potent type of dope, he fell off his balcony.
Tom, though, had been ex-Service before he severed all ties and, at his son’s flat, something sets off an alarm bell for him. He is soon convinced that Liam was murdered, and is determined to find out who is responsible. But his questions are upsetting quite a few people, and equipping himself with the necessary announces his return the crime bosses whose long incarceration he effected during his “joe” days.
Then someone on high at Regent’s Park sends young J.K. Coe (unofficially) with a message: a “do not disturb” on one name, an implication of responsibility for another. The source alone flags the information with a high index of suspicion, so Bettany sets out to verify, while ensuring to stay under the radar of the various parties eager to get up close and physical with him.
Fans of the Jackson Lamb series will be pleased to know that this story is set in the same universe, with at least six names known from that series playing roles or rating mentions here, one of whom comprehensively proves that the fate meted out to them in a later book is absolutely a just desert, if insufficiently punitive.
Coe was introduced in the novella, The List, and took his place in Slough House in Spook Street; in this novel, the reader learns the details of the ordeal that landed him under Jackson Lamb’s supervision. Once again, Herron produces a fast-paced crime novel with twists and red herrings to keep the reader guessing and the pages turning right up to the jaw-dropping revelations of the final chapters. Outstanding British crime fiction. -
This looks like the beginning of a delicious new spy/crime/mystery series by the veteran literary thriller writer and CWA Dagger Award winner, Mick Herron. The emphasis in Herron’s books is less on kinetics and more on character development. Already he has treated us to classic portraits including the bald and bewigged head of MI5’s Intelligence Service, Dame Ingrid Tearney, and the pale and twitchy successful games producer, Vincent Driscoll. But his main character, Tom Bettany, is one we expect to see again.
Where do disaffected British spies go when they leave the service? Thomas Bettany, a.k.a. Martin Boyd, leaves Britain and scuffles around the rougher parts of France where nobody much wants to know anyone’s personal history. Bettany lost his wife to cancer, and suddenly his estranged son turns up dead in London. Bettany had always figured on reconciliation, but that won’t happen now. So, how does a young man die suddenly? Bettany goes to find out and ends up walking smack into folks looking for him.
Mick Herron already has a host of good mysteries to his name, but he has refined his skills with this one. This is fun and involving--a great book for a day of too hot sun or heavy snowfall.
Soho Press is publishing this new series and the earlier Slough House series which included Slow Horses and
Dead Lions. -
If you are a fan of the Slough House series like me, you need to read this if you haven't, if for no other reason because it features JK Coe, and tells about his ordeal that landed him in Slough House. It mentions a few other familiar names, and has a very similar style.
I loved the book, but the ending... I had to sit there hoping more would magically appear, as there were too many loose ends. It seems like there needs to be a book two, but perhaps that's part of Mr. Herron's plan. When he says "Nobody Walks", perhaps he includes the readers. I suppose if I had a choice between a second book and another Slough House book, I'd choose the latter. And that may be what happened. -
Mick Herron could write a menu and I'd read it. I enjoy his writing that much. His Slough House series reeled me in and here I stay.
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(Bettany) didn’t often think about his past, but that too was the undercover mentality. The person you used to be was sealed off, boxed tight, locked shut, and you walked away. But nobody really walked.
Nobody Walks is a standalone novel, that fits neatly after the first two books in the Slough House (Slow Horses) series featuring the bumbling failed MI5 spies - outcasts from the service – who spend their days engaged in mind-numbing tasks under the odious and wily Jackson Lamb. Here, former Spook Thomas Bettany, after many years in Europe, returns to London on the news that his estranged son, Luke, has died after falling over the narrow balcony of his unit in London’s N1 – apparently high on drugs.
Bettany had worked deep-cover, infiltrating the network of arms dealers, the Brothers McGarry, and from the outset he is suspicious of his son’s death: was it revenge because of him? He sees shady characters at the crematorium, and tries to get answers from his son’s employer – the creator of computer games, and to trace the source of the drugs – pitting him against the London underworld (Bishop is a stand-out), Baltic drug dealers, and the ruthless Dame Ingrid Tearney (First desk at MI5). Like a tethered goat, “Dame Spook” uses the gullible JK Coe of Psych Eval as her go-between and Bettany – signalling Coe’s eventual fate as a “Slow Horse”.
(Bettany) let Flea lead him upstairs, where the windows were untinted, and the view was of rooftops across the canal. What had once been factories were now flats, though retained the outward appearance of industry. But an industry tamed, its corners waxed and polished.
This is vintage Mick Herron displaying his incredible ear for dialogue - especially of East End villains - and descriptive passages gilded with lyricism. A most enjoyable read. -
I am a huge fan of the Slough House series and, having devoured the main books, went back to discover more by him – those books, like his novellas, which touch on the series, but move parallel to it or, like this title, flesh out some of the character’s back stories – in this case, that of J.K. Coe. In terms of where this sits, it is really best read between the second and third novels, “Dead Lions,” and “Real Tigers,” but, even though I have read it out of order, it works well.
Tom Bettany is an ex-agent, who learns of his estranged son’s death and returns to London in time for his funeral. Suspecting his son’s death was murder, Bettany goes in search of the culprit, which brings him to the attention of First Desk, Dame Ingrid Tearney. J.K.Coe finds himself pulled from behind a desk to do her bidding and his initial euphoria of being chosen by her, ends in fear and disillusionment, as we discover why he acts as he does in later books.
This is an involved novel, with several strands, which Mick Herron weaves together as only he can. I am constantly impressed by Herron’s ability to create this fictional world and make it realistic and dangerous. This lacks the dark humour of the Slough House series, but it is always good to visit, even if you are just on the periphery, while it was interesting to learn Coe’s history and understand him better. An enjoyable read, but the master of the spy genre. -
It’s Mick Herron so we just start with 5 stars.
This is a stand-alone with rewarding pre-quel links to the Slough House series. It’s just classic Herron.
If you already love him you will obviously read this book at some point. If you haven’t read him but enjoy a smart British thriller, you need to try him, starting absolutely anywhere. -
Nobody Walks is a stand alone mystery but for those readers who love Mick Herron’s Slough House series, a few of those characters are woven into the plot and add to the intrigue. The book draws together spooks, drug dealers, game developers and those who will stoop at anything to protect their interests - money! The plot’s twists and turns lead to a heart thumping ending.
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Finally I got my hands on this book and read it at the library waiting for the rainstorm to abate. The only complaint would be very wet clothing and socks and shoes but the book was so well written I really did not allow the physical discomfort to ruin things. Is there a genre that allows for noir espionage/thriller? If so, this book is that. It is taut, carefully paced to perfection, scary with regard to MI5, sad in the circumstances of a son's death, brilliant in the former spy's ability to foresee the plotting of the head of MI5, hilarious in some of the torture scenes enacted and simply satisfying.
A 2015 book most Herron fans are probably familiar with. He is a gifted writer.
You can find a recent podcast on Irish Times with Herron when he released Joe Country, one of the Slough House series, a favorite of mine.
https://soundcloud.com/irishtimes-boo... -
I was expecting a completely standalone story, but was pleasantly surprised to find it set in the Slough House-iverse. This was grittier than the Jackson Lamb books, but it whizzed along and maintained internal coherence throughout.
I'd gladly read more about Tom Bettany, but he may have burned all his London bridges by the end of this one. An unexpected treat. -
If you give up on this book, which some reviewers have suggested, you'll miss out on hauntingly beautiful prose, a stunningly crafted plot and the aching sadness of loss so subtly intertwined. Brilliant.
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Herron's superb. Sad but logical ending,though.
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Mick Herron writes a thriller like a master. This book is amazing from its first paragraph to its last. It kept me on the edge of my seat and I never wanted to put the book down.
Tom Bettany works in a meat packing facility in France when he hears that his son, Liam, is dead, killed by a fall from his balcony. By all intents and purposes it looks like a suicide or accident but Bettany doesn't buy it. He flies to London, where Liam lived, and is on a mission to find out what happened. All he knows is that Liam had been smoking pot when he died, a blend called Muskrat, sold only by one source, Marten Saar. What bothers Bettany is that he can't find any lighters or matches in Liam's apartment so he believes that someone must have been there with him, someone who lit the joint. Who was it? Bettany is going to find out.
Bettany and Liam had been estranged when Liam died and Bettany always thought he'd have time to make things work again with his son. He realizes now that time's up. Liam is dead and there are no second chances. The only person who seems to have known Liam is a woman named Flea who worked with him in a gaming business called 'The Lunchbox'. Liam was hired because he was the first person to ever break the game's code.
Bettany is a retired secret ops agent who worked for M15, Britain's secret service. Ingrid Tearney, the director of M15, knows that Bettany is in town and she has an agenda of her own. She sics a psychiatric newby on Bettany who gives him Marten Saars' name. Additionally, the gaming company that Liam worked for is run by a very eccentric man named Vincent Driscoll. Coe delivers the message that Ingrid wants Liam to keep his hands off of him. Bettany wonders why. In the meantime, he buys a gun.
This novel is well written, well-characterized and is literary fiction that happens to be a thriller. It is a must-read for anyone who enjoys this genre. It is in a category of its own, unique, fluent, and sucks you in like a vacuum cleaner. -
There is nothing quite as satisfying as being introduced to a broken, somewhat lost hero. Tom Bettany is one such hero. The opening lines of Mick Herron’s latest novel, Nobody Walks, introduce readers to Tom, a worker in a meat processing plant just as he is receiving the news that his estranged son Liam has fallen to his death from a balcony of his London apartment while smoking pot. Tom has more than a few questions about his son’s death, and returns to London to claim the body, and also if he is honest, to investigate what really happened to his son. His arrival in the city ignites the interests of many, from mob bosses to the upper echelons of MI5. Readers are taken on a thrilling ride as they discover just who Tom is, why so many people are interested in his return, and in fact what happened to Liam. Herron has created a cast of unforgettable characters and woven a plot of intrigue that will delight readers, and is a must for fans of thrillers, espionage and well plotted mysteries.
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This book is a not a fast read. But there are too many details, blatant and hidden, in every sentence that if missed by the reader will lessen the impact of its ending. And that is exactly what I love about this book, which I lap it up right from the first page.
Similar to Jackson Lamb, Tom Bettany is not your typical sauve Bond. He’s uncouth, messy and at times violent. But he is charismatic in his own way - extremely smart, instinctive and sharp. Which is why he is fascinating, this book is addictive and the plot moves seamlessly even when it seemed confusing at the beginning. -
I enjoyed Nobody Walks. It’s not in the stellar class of most of the Slough House series, but it’s a very good thriller which fleshes out some familiar characters – most notably Dame Ingrid Tearney and J.K. Coe.
It’s a clever, labyrinthine plot: Tom Bettany, ex-Service agent, returns to Britain after the apparently accidental death of his son and goes looking for those responsible. There are twists and revelations as Bettany has to decide whether he is being manipulated into action, and if so, why and by whom.
Herron has frequently been compared to le Carré, but I’ve often felt that that was just lazy thinking because although they’re both fine writers and take espionage as their subject, the style and approach of the Slough House novels is very different from le Carré. Here, Herron produces a thoughtful, serious and penetrating character study of Bettany which is more reminiscent of le Carré. Herron also builds a fine, tense plot peopled with well drawn characters and which refuses to give easy, neat answers.
This isn’t classic Herron, but it’s very well done, it’s gripping and it left me thoughtful and a little haunted by events and characters. Nobody Walks is well above the average slew of spy thrillers and I can recommend it. -
This started with great promise - a man working in a meat-processing plant in France gets a call telling him that his estranged son has died in a fall, and he travels back to London to find out what happened. The writing throughout is terse and fast-paced and intelligent, it reminded me of the likes of Malcolm Mackay's Glasgow Trilogy, but the longer it went on.. the more it turned into the sort of thriller I like less than 'straight' crime fiction. The plot is well-scripted, the characters colourful, but.. I just found the central protagonist's superhuman abilities, the co-incidences necessary to move on the plot, the number of nasty bastards I didn't care about.. it fell from a four to a three by the end.
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One of the most enjoyable thrillersI have read for years. It's starts off with a that old trope man finds out estranged son is dead, man decides he needs to do something about and does. From that so far so usual start though Mick Herron serves up a delightfully clever and engrossing story of suspense with well drawn interesting people doing interesting things that you did not expect. Really excellent genre novel that I could not recommend more highly for anyone who likes their thrillers smart and dark.
