Tag: Mick Herron

Bad Actors by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

In MI5 a scandal is brewing and there are bad actors everywhere.

A key member of a Downing Street think tank has disappeared without trace.  Claude Wheelan, one-time First Desk of MI5’s Regent’s Park, is tasked with tracking her down.  But the trail leads straight back to Regent’s Park HQ itself, with its chief, Diana Taverner, as prime suspect.  Meanwhile her Russian counterpart has unexpectedly shown up in London but has slipped under MI5’s radar.

Over at Slough House, the home for demoted and embittered spies, the slow horses are doing what they do best: adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation.

In a world where lying, cheating and back-stabbing are the norm, bad actors are bending the rules for their own gain.  If the slow horses want to change the script, they’ll need to get their own act together before the final curtain.  

You can order BAD ACTORS by Mick Herron from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Slough House by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

’Kill us?  They’ve never needed to kill us,’ said Lamb.  ‘I mean, look at us.  What would be the point?’

A year after a calamitous blunder by the Russian secret service left a British citizen dead from Novichok poisoning, Diana Taverner is on the warpath.  What seems a gutless response from the government has pushed the Service’s First Desk into mounting her own counter-offensive – but she’s had to make a deal with the devil fist.  And given that the devil in question is arch-manipulator Peter Judd, she could be about to lose control of everything she’s fought for.

Meanwhile, still reeling from recent losses, the slow horses are worried they’ve been pushed further into the cold.  Slough House has been wiped from Service records, and fatal accidents keep happening.  No wonder Jackson Lamb’s crew are feeling paranoid.  But they have they actually been targeted?

With a new populist movement taking a grip on London’s streets, and the old order ensuring that everything’s for sale to the highest bider, the world’s an uncomfortable place for those deemed surplus to requirements.  The wise move would be to find a safe place and wait for the troubles to pass.

Bu the slow horses aren’t famed for making wise decisions.

You can buy SLOUGH HOUSE by Mick Herron from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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The Catch by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

If life in the Intelligence Service has taught John Bachelor anything, it’s to keep his head down.  Especially now, when he’s living rent-free in a dead spook’s flat.

So he’s not delighted to be woken at dawn by a pair of Regent’s Park’s heavies, looking for a client he’s not seen in years.

Benny Manors could be anywhere, provided it serves alcohol.  So John sets out on a reluctant trawl through the bars of the capital, all the while plagued by the age-old questions: will he end up sleeping in his car?  How many bottles of gin can be afford at London prices?

And just how far will Regent’s Park go to prevent anyone rocking the Establishment’s boat.

You can order The Catch by Mick Herron from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Nobody Walks by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

Tom Bettany is working at a meat processing plant in France hen he gets a voice mail from an Englishwoman he doesn’t know telling him that his estranged 26-year-old son is dead – Liam Bettany had a fatal fall from his London balcony.

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 Liam 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 ever really walks away. 

You can order Nobody Walks by Mick Herron from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Reconstruction by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

What should have been a simply pick-up turns into a day-long nightmare for Bad Sam Chapman.

When an operational catastrophe puts a gun in the hands of a young man who then breaks into South Oxford Nursery School and take a group hostage, teacher Louise Kennedy fears the worst.  But Jaime Segura isn’t there on a homicidal mission, and he’s just as scared as those whose lives he holds as collateral.

As an armed police presence builds outside the school’s gates, Bad Sam Chapman – head of the intelligence services’s internal security force, the Dogs – battles the clock to find out what Jaime is after, before those who are after Jamie find him first …

You can buy RECONSTRUCTION by Mick Herron from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Joe Country by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

”We’re spies,” said Lamb.  “All kinds of outlandish shit goes on.”

Like the ringing of a dead man’s phone or an unwelcome guest at a funeral …

In Slough House memories are stirring, all of them bad.  Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him an outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.

And with winter taking its grip Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets.  So when the man responsible breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.

This time, they’re heading into joe country. And they’re not all coming home.

You can buy JOE COUNTRY by Mick Herron from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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The Drop by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

Old spooks carry the memory of tradecraft in their bones, and when Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope being passed from one pair of hands to another in a Marylebone cafe, he knows he’s witnessed more than an innocent encounter. But in relaying his suspicions to John Bachelor, who babysits retired spies like Solly, he sets in train events which will alter lives. Bachelor himself, a hair’s breadth away from sleeping in his car, is clawing his way back to stability; Hannah Weiss, the double agent whose recruitment was his only success, is starting to enjoy the secrets and lies her role demands; and Lech Wicinski, an Intelligence Service analyst, finds that a simple favour for an old acquaintance might derail his career. Meanwhile, Lady Di Taverner is trying to keep the Service on an even keel, and if that means throwing the odd crew member overboard, well: collateral damage is her speciality.

A drop, in spook parlance, is the passing on of secret information.

It’s also what happens just before you hit the ground. 

You can order THE DROP by Mick Herron (published as THE MARYLEBONE DROP in the USA) from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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This Is What Happened by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

Something’s happened.

A lot of things have happened.

If there was a way of rolling back time, she wondered how far she would go.

Twenty-six-year-old Maggie Barnes is someone you would never look at twice.  Living alone in a month-to-month sublet in London, with no family except an estranged sister, no boyfriend or partner, and not much in the way of friends, Maggie is just the king of person who could vanish from the face of the earth without anyone taking notice.

Or just the kind of person MI5 needs to thwart an international plot that puts the whole of Britain at risk.

Now one young woman has the chance to be a hero – if she can think quickly enough to stay alive. 

You can order THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED by Mick Herron from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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The List by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

Dieter Hess, an aged spy, is dead, and John Bachelor, his MI5 handler, is in deep, deep trouble.  Death has revealed that the deceased had been keeping a secret second bank account – and there’s only ever one reason a spy has a secret second bank account.  The question of whether he was a double agent must be resolved, and its answer may undo an entire career’s worth of spy secrets.  

You can order THE LIST by Mick Herron from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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London Rules by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

London Rules might not be written down, but everyone knows rule one.

Cover your arse.

Regent’s Park’s First Desk, Claude Whelan, is learning this the hard way.  Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he’s facing attack from all directions himself: from the showboating MP who orchestrated the Brexit vote, and now has his sights set on Number Ten; from the showboat’s wife, a tabloid columnist, who’s crucifying Whelan in print; and especially from his own deputy, Lady Di Taverner, who’s alert for Claude’s every stumble.

Meanwhile, the country’s being rocked by an apparently random string of terror attacks, and someone’s trying to kill Roddy Ho.

Over at Slough House, the crew are struggling with personal problems: repressed grief, various addictions, retail paralysis, and the nagging suspicion that their newest colleague is a psychopath.  But, collectively, they’re about to rediscover their greatest strength – that of making a bad situation much, much worse.

It’s a good job Jackson Lamb knows the rules.  Because those things aren’t going to break themselves.

You can order LONDON RULES by Mick Herron from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Spook Street by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

Never outlive your ability to survive a fight. 

Twenty years retired, David Cartwright can still spot when the stoats are on his trail.

Jackson Lamb worked with Cartwright back in the day.  He knows better than most that this is no vulnerable old man.  ‘Nasty old spook with blood on his hands’ would be a more accurate description.

‘The old bastard’ has raised his grandson with a head full of guts and glory.  But far from joining the myths and legends of Spook Street, River Cartwright is consigned to Lamb’s team of pen-pushing no-hopers at Slough House.

So it’s Lamb they call to identify the body when Cartwright’s panic button raises the alarm at Service HQ.

And Lamb who will do whatever he thinks necessary, to protect an agent in peril …

You can order SPOOK STREET by Mick Herron from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Real Tigers by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

Catherine Standish knows that chance encounters never happen to spooks. 

She’s worked in the Intelligence Service long enough to understand treachery, double-dealing and stabbing in the back.

What she doesn’t know is why anyone would target her: a recovering drunk pushing paper with the other lost causes in Jackson Lamb’s kingdom of exiles at Slough House.

Whoever it is holding her hostage, it can’t be personal.  It must be about Slough House.  Most likely, it is about Jackson Lamb.

And say what you like about Lamb, he’ll never leave a joe in the lurch.

He might even be someone you could trust with your life …

You can order REAL TIGERS by Mick Herron from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Dead Lions by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

Dickie Bow is not an obvious target for assassination. 

But once a spook, always a spook.  And Dickie was a talented streetwalker back in the day, before he turned up dead on a bus.  A shadow.  Good at following people, bringing home their secrets.

Dickie was in Berlin with Jackson Lamb.  Now Lamb’s got his phone, and on it the last secret Dickie ever told, and reason to believe an old-time Moscow-style op is being run in the Service’s back yard.

In the Intelligence Service purgatory that is Slough House, Jackson Lamb’s crew of back-office no-hopers is about to go live … 

You can order DEAD LIONS by Mick Herron from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Slow Horses by Mick Herron

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The Blurb On The Back:

You don’t stop being a spook just because you’re no longer in the game. 

Banished to Slough House from the ranks of achievers at Regent’s Park for various crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal, Jackson Lamb’s misfit crew of highly trained joes don’t run ops, they push paper.

But not one of them joined the Intelligence Service to be a ‘slow horse’.

A boy is kidnapped and held hostage.  His beheading is scheduled for live broadcast on the internet.

And whatever the instructions of the Service, the slow horses aren’t going to just sit quiet and watch … 

You can order SLOW HORSES by Mick Herron from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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