Shirley Dander tapped a pencil uselessly against her reluctant monitor, then put it down. Just don’t mistake this for a comedy, and beware of getting too attached to the characters Herron has a nasty habit of killing them off. The irony is dry, dark and bleakly entertaining, though you might have to be British to get it. Lamb sets the benchmark in politically incorrect comments, making Donald Trump look featherweight. He builds a storyline in which the conflicts within the organisation are almost as dangerous as those outside it.īut, for me, best of all is Herron’s onslaught of deadpan humour. Herron combines their foibles with a sound understanding of dysfunctional bureaucracy. Each has their own story and reason for being confined to MI5’s backwater. Retailers have labelled books in the series “Jackson Lamb Thrillers” after Herron’s main protagonist, which is unfair to Herron’s cast of failed spooks. One of Slough House’s misfits is “well past anal… his socks are tagged left and right”, and he describes a protest march as a “rainbow coalition of the pissed off”.

Herron portrays people and events impeccably. The intricate plot may stretch credibility, but this is a work of fiction, so that isn’t something to get too upset about. He will keep you intrigued right to the very end as, in fits and starts, you start to grasp what is happening. Herron’s Dead Lions is full of twists, dead ends, false starts and secret deals. Dead Lions won the 2013 Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award. Mick Herron has taken a clever scenario - an office where MI5 shunts its inept or embarrassing operatives - and spun it around to create a critically acclaimed series of novels.

At first, it looked like an accident, but the woman driving the car had some dubious friends in her past.Īn unlikely double assassination or unrelated tragedies? Review Here is a man the security services would love to have in their pocket.īut then one of the chaperones dies whilst riding his bicycle blind drunk. Pashkin, one of Russia’s wealthiest oligarchs, could be destined for the Kremlin. He had made his way from London to an obscure village in the Cotswolds, nestled beside an abandoned American airbase and then disappeared back to Moscow via Gatwick airport.Īt the same time, an ambitious MI5 operative clad in a pinstripe suit has seconded two of Lamb’s staff to chaperone Arkady Pashkin. Lamb and his team uncover the trail of a Russian spy.

When a long-retired cold war agent, Dickie Bow, is found dead on a coach to Oxford, Jackson Lamb decides he should investigate.

Mick herron dead lions plot