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Slough House #8
Bad Actors
A governmental think-tank, whose remit is to curb the independence of the intelligence service, has lost one of its key members, and Claude Whelan—one-time head of MI5's Regent’s Park—is tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads straight back to the Park itself, with Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Diana overplayed her hand at last? What’s her counterpart, Moscow’s First Desk, doing in London? And does Jackson Lamb know more than he’s telling?
Over at Slough House, with Shirley Dander in rehab, Roddy Ho in dress rehearsal, and new recruit Ashley Khan turning up the heat, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation . . .
There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned.
Over at Slough House, with Shirley Dander in rehab, Roddy Ho in dress rehearsal, and new recruit Ashley Khan turning up the heat, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation . . .
There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned.
344 pages, Hardcover
First published May 10, 2022
2057 people are currently reading
6762 people want to read
About the author
Mick Herron
54 books4,823 followersMick Herron was born in Newcastle and has a degree in English from Balliol College, Oxford. He is the author of six books in the Slough House series as well as a mystery series set in Oxford featuring Sarah Tucker and/or P.I. Zoë Boehm. He now lives in Oxford and works in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,201 reviews
December 15, 2022
The slow horses are back in Mick Herron's marvellous latest addition to his terrific Slough House series, featuring the dregs and failures of the British intelligence services, led by the monstrously astute Jackson Lamb. The author skilfully skewers a British government, led by a PM notorious for gaslighting a nation, and known for his hands off approach when it comes to actually engaging with the details and work of governance, his chief SPAD is the behind scenes manipulator Anthony Sparrow, an expert when it comes to the art of dirty politics. He is intent on wresting control of Regent Park's first desk, 'Lady' Diana Taverner, and ridding it of any sense of independence from government, with the accusation of waterproofing.
A governmental policy think-tank, whose remit has lost one of its key members, the Swiss superforecaster Sophie de Greer, has gone missing and Claude Whelan, ex-head of MI5's Regent’s Park has been tasked with locating her. It's an absolute joy to be reacquainted with the slow horses, there's a new recruit, Ashley Khan, naive enough to believe that a return to Regent's Park is actually on the cards, Roddy Ho is making zoom calls to try and reel in women, and Shirley Dander is on top form, ending up in rehab at the San, thanks to the influence of Catherine Standish. The appearance of the Russian first desk, Vassily Roskonov, at a Russian Embassy party ensures Taverner's attendance, as she tries to work out why he is here, and the interest of Slough House. Whelan follows the well laid out trail to Taverner, who gets a Red Queen warning phone call.
The number of bad actors in play guarantees that chaos, instability and mayhem are the order of the day, particularly with the involvement of the slow horses, and what exactly is it that Lamb knows? Herron satirises a British government mired in lies, deceptions and incompetency, the non-accountable power of special advisors, and their focus on removing any sources of power in a position to challenge the government. This was a brilliant read, funny and entertaining, hitting so close to the bone, the highlight of which for me was Shirley Dander and the rather unexpected ally she acquires at the end. A stellar addition to a magnificent series. Highly recommended!
A governmental policy think-tank, whose remit has lost one of its key members, the Swiss superforecaster Sophie de Greer, has gone missing and Claude Whelan, ex-head of MI5's Regent’s Park has been tasked with locating her. It's an absolute joy to be reacquainted with the slow horses, there's a new recruit, Ashley Khan, naive enough to believe that a return to Regent's Park is actually on the cards, Roddy Ho is making zoom calls to try and reel in women, and Shirley Dander is on top form, ending up in rehab at the San, thanks to the influence of Catherine Standish. The appearance of the Russian first desk, Vassily Roskonov, at a Russian Embassy party ensures Taverner's attendance, as she tries to work out why he is here, and the interest of Slough House. Whelan follows the well laid out trail to Taverner, who gets a Red Queen warning phone call.
The number of bad actors in play guarantees that chaos, instability and mayhem are the order of the day, particularly with the involvement of the slow horses, and what exactly is it that Lamb knows? Herron satirises a British government mired in lies, deceptions and incompetency, the non-accountable power of special advisors, and their focus on removing any sources of power in a position to challenge the government. This was a brilliant read, funny and entertaining, hitting so close to the bone, the highlight of which for me was Shirley Dander and the rather unexpected ally she acquires at the end. A stellar addition to a magnificent series. Highly recommended!
July 8, 2022
Reading this book in the same week that Boris Johnson has been ejected from his role of Prime Minister made it even more special than a new Slough House book always is. Any reference to the PM in the text made me laugh twice as hard as normal.
This series is the best, bringing together intelligent writing, cutting social commentary, wicked humour and some of the best characters ever. I still long for River, but am happy with Jackson, Shirley, Roddy et al as they blunder around as the most inept spies ever. Actually remove Jackson Lamb from that list. He cannot be described as inept, a better description would be distasteful.
These books need to be read slowly in a quiet room in order to absorb every cunning comment and every jot of humour. I could actually go back and read this one again right now and I bet I would still find new things to laugh at and new bits to annoy people with by reading them out loud.
Just excellent. Keep them coming Mr. Herron.
This series is the best, bringing together intelligent writing, cutting social commentary, wicked humour and some of the best characters ever. I still long for River, but am happy with Jackson, Shirley, Roddy et al as they blunder around as the most inept spies ever. Actually remove Jackson Lamb from that list. He cannot be described as inept, a better description would be distasteful.
These books need to be read slowly in a quiet room in order to absorb every cunning comment and every jot of humour. I could actually go back and read this one again right now and I bet I would still find new things to laugh at and new bits to annoy people with by reading them out loud.
Just excellent. Keep them coming Mr. Herron.
July 5, 2022
Mike Herron’s latest novel in his Slough House series is always my most eagerly anticipated book of the year. I don’t have the words or eloquence to express how much I love this series!
Bad Actors is every bit as good as the best in this series. It is brilliantly plotted and paced, full of wonderful almost poetic writing, satirical commentary on the nation’s politicians, and deliciously sharp humour. London is post Brexit and emerging from covid and Diana Taverner is in the thick of it again, plotting to wipe out any threats to her position. Jackson Lamb is just as odious (and malodorous) as ever but his brilliant brain is always on the ball and Diana still can’t pull the wool over his eyes. His team of misfits manage to create chaos in a park at night when they attempt a rescue and Shirley Dander ends up in a rehab hospital which leads to hilarious scenes later in the novel as she shows the bad guys they shouldn’t mess with her. Wonderful stuff as always!
Bad Actors is every bit as good as the best in this series. It is brilliantly plotted and paced, full of wonderful almost poetic writing, satirical commentary on the nation’s politicians, and deliciously sharp humour. London is post Brexit and emerging from covid and Diana Taverner is in the thick of it again, plotting to wipe out any threats to her position. Jackson Lamb is just as odious (and malodorous) as ever but his brilliant brain is always on the ball and Diana still can’t pull the wool over his eyes. His team of misfits manage to create chaos in a park at night when they attempt a rescue and Shirley Dander ends up in a rehab hospital which leads to hilarious scenes later in the novel as she shows the bad guys they shouldn’t mess with her. Wonderful stuff as always!
August 15, 2022
5★
“[X] must be spending half his time looking for the nearest open door, in case his boss took it in mind to examine his innermost thoughts, perhaps by spreading them across a carpet.”
Episodes of the TV show Friends had titles such as “The One Where Everybody Finds Out” or “The One Where Rachel and Ross Take a Break”. For the Slow Horses, I’d call this, “The One Where Shirley Gets Her Dander Up”.
She is aptly named, Shirley Dander, because she is easily riled, and in this ‘episode’, she is parked for rehab in the San to cool off.
“all the sermonising about self-control and clean living would be easier to take with a bump of coke to help it down, not to mention it would increase their chances of getting her to open up. She’d be first to admit she was more voluble after a line or two.”
She can’t believe she misses Slough House, the derelict headquarters of Jackson Lamb’s “squad”. Regent’s Park, the home of Britain’s secret service, has found these operative wanting and has reassigned them.
“Slough House is the end of the pier, the fleapit to which Regent’s Park consigns failures, and these would-be stars of the British security services are living out the aftermath of their professional errors.”
No two are alike but all are answerable to the gaseous Jackson Lamb, whose greasy garb should go up in flames each time he lights up his ever-present smoke. Lamb calls in even the semi-retired John Bachelor to play a more central role than usual.
But back to Shirley. How did she end up in the San? Easy. She attacked a bus with power and grace, to hear her tell it. (long story) She put on her mask (pandemic), got out with her iron in her hand (long story), and
“launched herself off the ground.
It was nearly ballet; very nearly ballet. Maybe a little less delicate. At the moment the flat of the iron hit the glass she was airborne – an echo of the clubbing she might have been doing now, had the evening taken a different turn – and in the second of contact, the windscreen went opaque; she enjoyed a frozen moment during which a huddled group of tourists stared out at her, terrified, as if their entertainment had unexpectedly turned 3D. And then she was on the ground again, having executed a damn-near perfect superhero landing – the fingers of one hand touching the ground, iron raised like a hammer in the other – and the coach behind her was blind, and its driver stunned speechless.”
I could just imagine Shirley, with her dander up, flying ‘high’, then posing proudly something like Rodin’s Discus Thrower, an obvious client for the San.
It is current politics, the main plot being British spies vs Russian spies vs #10 Downing Street’s Anthony Sparrow, “the PM’s string-puller according to some, his headbutter-in-chief to others, he was nobody’s idea of a good time either way.
. . .
While the PM still racked up sound bites on a regular basis, they mostly came out as ‘gottle o’ geer’. His lips might move, but it was Sparrow writing his script.
. . .
Sparrow was no gossip. Sparrow was the weasel under the Cabinet table, his teeth bared and dripping.”
Watching Sparrow and various political operatives and Diana Taverner up against each other and the Russians is excellent fun in post-Brexit London. They all play for keeps.
“Even Nash, technically one of Regent’s Park’s string-pullers, knew to tread carefully around Diana. String-pullers carry weight, but Diana carried scissors.”
There is mention of the pandemic, but it isn’t a feature. Catherine Standish is in charge of the Slough House agents (I use the term loosely). A staff meeting has been called in Lamb’s office.
“She put the stool by the door; placed the sanitiser on top of it.
Lamb opened one eye. ‘Lubricant? Pretty optimistic for a staff meeting.’
He closed it again. ‘But I suppose it’ll be a chance to swap these gender fluids I keep hearing about.’”
The slow horses themselves are individual and unforgettable, relegated to Slough House for a variety of infractions. Still, they pretty much hold their own against seriously brutal opponents. It’s not for nothing Shirley got her dander up, nor was the bus the only victim of violence.
As well as people and plot, it’s Herron’s prose I enjoy. He has a lyrical touch when speaking of the wind, the weather, and the surrounds. I don’t know how he keeps finding new ways to describe the unpleasantness of Slough House.
“stairs whose carpet has worn thin as an actor’s ego and whose walls boast mildew stains, and whose light bulbs are naked and/or spent. It’s dark in here, a bumpy kind of dark, with sound effects provided by rising damp and falling plaster, and the offstage antics of vermin.”
Ewww.
I love this series! They are best read in order, and I hope you do. I’ve read and written about them all.
“[X] must be spending half his time looking for the nearest open door, in case his boss took it in mind to examine his innermost thoughts, perhaps by spreading them across a carpet.”
Episodes of the TV show Friends had titles such as “The One Where Everybody Finds Out” or “The One Where Rachel and Ross Take a Break”. For the Slow Horses, I’d call this, “The One Where Shirley Gets Her Dander Up”.
She is aptly named, Shirley Dander, because she is easily riled, and in this ‘episode’, she is parked for rehab in the San to cool off.
“all the sermonising about self-control and clean living would be easier to take with a bump of coke to help it down, not to mention it would increase their chances of getting her to open up. She’d be first to admit she was more voluble after a line or two.”
She can’t believe she misses Slough House, the derelict headquarters of Jackson Lamb’s “squad”. Regent’s Park, the home of Britain’s secret service, has found these operative wanting and has reassigned them.
“Slough House is the end of the pier, the fleapit to which Regent’s Park consigns failures, and these would-be stars of the British security services are living out the aftermath of their professional errors.”
No two are alike but all are answerable to the gaseous Jackson Lamb, whose greasy garb should go up in flames each time he lights up his ever-present smoke. Lamb calls in even the semi-retired John Bachelor to play a more central role than usual.
But back to Shirley. How did she end up in the San? Easy. She attacked a bus with power and grace, to hear her tell it. (long story) She put on her mask (pandemic), got out with her iron in her hand (long story), and
“launched herself off the ground.
It was nearly ballet; very nearly ballet. Maybe a little less delicate. At the moment the flat of the iron hit the glass she was airborne – an echo of the clubbing she might have been doing now, had the evening taken a different turn – and in the second of contact, the windscreen went opaque; she enjoyed a frozen moment during which a huddled group of tourists stared out at her, terrified, as if their entertainment had unexpectedly turned 3D. And then she was on the ground again, having executed a damn-near perfect superhero landing – the fingers of one hand touching the ground, iron raised like a hammer in the other – and the coach behind her was blind, and its driver stunned speechless.”
I could just imagine Shirley, with her dander up, flying ‘high’, then posing proudly something like Rodin’s Discus Thrower, an obvious client for the San.
It is current politics, the main plot being British spies vs Russian spies vs #10 Downing Street’s Anthony Sparrow, “the PM’s string-puller according to some, his headbutter-in-chief to others, he was nobody’s idea of a good time either way.
. . .
While the PM still racked up sound bites on a regular basis, they mostly came out as ‘gottle o’ geer’. His lips might move, but it was Sparrow writing his script.
. . .
Sparrow was no gossip. Sparrow was the weasel under the Cabinet table, his teeth bared and dripping.”
Watching Sparrow and various political operatives and Diana Taverner up against each other and the Russians is excellent fun in post-Brexit London. They all play for keeps.
“Even Nash, technically one of Regent’s Park’s string-pullers, knew to tread carefully around Diana. String-pullers carry weight, but Diana carried scissors.”
There is mention of the pandemic, but it isn’t a feature. Catherine Standish is in charge of the Slough House agents (I use the term loosely). A staff meeting has been called in Lamb’s office.
“She put the stool by the door; placed the sanitiser on top of it.
Lamb opened one eye. ‘Lubricant? Pretty optimistic for a staff meeting.’
He closed it again. ‘But I suppose it’ll be a chance to swap these gender fluids I keep hearing about.’”
The slow horses themselves are individual and unforgettable, relegated to Slough House for a variety of infractions. Still, they pretty much hold their own against seriously brutal opponents. It’s not for nothing Shirley got her dander up, nor was the bus the only victim of violence.
As well as people and plot, it’s Herron’s prose I enjoy. He has a lyrical touch when speaking of the wind, the weather, and the surrounds. I don’t know how he keeps finding new ways to describe the unpleasantness of Slough House.
“stairs whose carpet has worn thin as an actor’s ego and whose walls boast mildew stains, and whose light bulbs are naked and/or spent. It’s dark in here, a bumpy kind of dark, with sound effects provided by rising damp and falling plaster, and the offstage antics of vermin.”
Ewww.
I love this series! They are best read in order, and I hope you do. I’ve read and written about them all.
June 7, 2022
4 ☆
Mick Herron has carved out a unique niche in espionage thrillers with his Slough House series. To fans of spy stories, the author's pervasive themes of "half of the future lies in the past" and "all joes go to the well, slyly whoring themselves for the coin of their choice" are familiar ground. But Herron sets himself apart with his blend of pithily cynical commentary, tongue in cheek tone, lyrical descriptions, and, of course, his characters. The ramshackle crew of second-rate Secret Service employees, which the Service fervently wishes would just quietly go away, have been stabled at Slough House. That these "slow horses" steadfastly refuse to quit is definitely not testament to their half drunken, wreathed in cigarette smoke, but oh-so-wily leader, the inimitable Jackson Lamb.
In Bad Actors, the eighth installment, London has barely emerged from Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. During the course of one week, the Prime Minister bleats his vision that post-Brexit Britain will evolve into a "scientific / cultural / [fill-in-the-blank] powerhouse, its trillion-pound tech / film / [fill-in-the-blank] industry the envy of the world." Meanwhile Anthony Sparrow, the PM's special adviser, is not so quietly pulling the strings and is one who satisfies the
A member of a political think tank, Dr. Sophia de Greer is a superforecaster upon whom Sparrow relies. But she's been AWOL for several days. Sparrow points fingers at Diana Taverner, the First Desk of the Secret Service. Because Sparrow's ultimate objective is to collect all branches of government under his direct control by fair means or foul.
Diana Taverner had waited jealously in the background when Ingrid Tearney and then Claude Whelan had been elevated to the rank of First Desk. Whether Taverner really has the mettle to survive, never mind flourish, as the leader of the Secret Service has been questioned in previous installments. Perhaps Lamb will again play a supporting role in the bad drama in which Taverner is mired.
I had binged read every Slough House novel and its offshoots when I had found Herron last year. To say that I had been impatiently waiting for Bad Actors would be an understatement as the preceding novel had left fates dangling. Yes, my wait had been rewarded even though Herron relentlessly teased throughout the entire novel. To those unfamiliar with the Slough House series, Herron had written Bad Actors as a standalone but a new reader would be challenged to fully appreciate the recurring characters' motivations and sentiments without knowledge of the earlier books. But wherever you begin, don't deprive yourself of the pleasure of this quirky and clever satire.
Listed in GR sequence, but not necessarily in chronological order:
#1 Slow Horses 4 ☆
#2 Dead Lions almost 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 ☆
This review first appeared in Mystery and Suspense Magazine.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce.
Mick Herron has carved out a unique niche in espionage thrillers with his Slough House series. To fans of spy stories, the author's pervasive themes of "half of the future lies in the past" and "all joes go to the well, slyly whoring themselves for the coin of their choice" are familiar ground. But Herron sets himself apart with his blend of pithily cynical commentary, tongue in cheek tone, lyrical descriptions, and, of course, his characters. The ramshackle crew of second-rate Secret Service employees, which the Service fervently wishes would just quietly go away, have been stabled at Slough House. That these "slow horses" steadfastly refuse to quit is definitely not testament to their half drunken, wreathed in cigarette smoke, but oh-so-wily leader, the inimitable Jackson Lamb.
To be assigned to Slough House meant you'd committed some egregious error; had endangered lives, or caused embarrassment, or invited the wrong sort of attention, all of which were among the seven deadlies of Spook Street.
In Bad Actors, the eighth installment, London has barely emerged from Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. During the course of one week, the Prime Minister bleats his vision that post-Brexit Britain will evolve into a "scientific / cultural / [fill-in-the-blank] powerhouse, its trillion-pound tech / film / [fill-in-the-blank] industry the envy of the world." Meanwhile Anthony Sparrow, the PM's special adviser, is not so quietly pulling the strings and is one who satisfies the
Whitehall edict that it's those you have most contempt for who do the most damage.
A member of a political think tank, Dr. Sophia de Greer is a superforecaster upon whom Sparrow relies. But she's been AWOL for several days. Sparrow points fingers at Diana Taverner, the First Desk of the Secret Service. Because Sparrow's ultimate objective is to collect all branches of government under his direct control by fair means or foul.
Every national panic permitted a government to lace its boots tighter, which was why every government needed a visionary to sow chaos.
...it was an education itself, exploring the depths of other people's ignorance and gullibility.
Diana Taverner had waited jealously in the background when Ingrid Tearney and then Claude Whelan had been elevated to the rank of First Desk. Whether Taverner really has the mettle to survive, never mind flourish, as the leader of the Secret Service has been questioned in previous installments. Perhaps Lamb will again play a supporting role in the bad drama in which Taverner is mired.
whatever role you choose, you reach the end of the drama...
The triumph lies in making the choice, rather than accepting the part you're given.
I had binged read every Slough House novel and its offshoots when I had found Herron last year. To say that I had been impatiently waiting for Bad Actors would be an understatement as the preceding novel had left fates dangling. Yes, my wait had been rewarded even though Herron relentlessly teased throughout the entire novel. To those unfamiliar with the Slough House series, Herron had written Bad Actors as a standalone but a new reader would be challenged to fully appreciate the recurring characters' motivations and sentiments without knowledge of the earlier books. But wherever you begin, don't deprive yourself of the pleasure of this quirky and clever satire.
Listed in GR sequence, but not necessarily in chronological order:
#1 Slow Horses 4 ☆
#2 Dead Lions almost 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 ☆
This review first appeared in Mystery and Suspense Magazine.
June 8, 2022
OMG, I do love Shirley Dander! She is a glorious fuckup. Throwing herself into trouble, often fueled by cocaine, willing to use most anything as a weapon, she is always the center of chaos. Shirley gets a starring role in this Slough House installment. No monkey wrench this time (although she remembers it fondly), but she wields a mean plastic fork. She was paying attention during combat classes, that's for sure.
Mind you the gang's mostly all there. Roddy Ho is being his usual self—leading a rich fantasy life in which he believes himself to be suave and smooth, instead of a guy who loses his grip on a broom and sends it through a window at Slough House. It's the newest slow horse who finally gets him a date, negotiating with a woman that Ho was trying to convince to cosplay with him. And this new woman, Ash, is going to be a handful. She's already started a food war with Lamb, putting extreme spice in her lunch, left in the fridge for him to steal. He may have a worthy opponent with this one!
Of course, Jackson Lamb is much in evidence, making everyone nervous when he shifts position. They all back away on the relatively likely chance that there's a fetid fart in the offing. Is his grossness an act? He does look after his joes, despite their general tendency to bungle everything. And is he really assisting Diana Taverner, or has he set her up?
Herron does what he does best, he writes a twisty, convoluted plot, with cynical political bon mots placed artfully. He manages to suggest real people that we know from the news, while inventing realistic shenanigans for them to be sent prancing through, lying and scheming all the way. He seems to be telling us that we might as well make entertaining art from the news, rather than just feeling disgusted or despairing.
Mind you the gang's mostly all there. Roddy Ho is being his usual self—leading a rich fantasy life in which he believes himself to be suave and smooth, instead of a guy who loses his grip on a broom and sends it through a window at Slough House. It's the newest slow horse who finally gets him a date, negotiating with a woman that Ho was trying to convince to cosplay with him. And this new woman, Ash, is going to be a handful. She's already started a food war with Lamb, putting extreme spice in her lunch, left in the fridge for him to steal. He may have a worthy opponent with this one!
Of course, Jackson Lamb is much in evidence, making everyone nervous when he shifts position. They all back away on the relatively likely chance that there's a fetid fart in the offing. Is his grossness an act? He does look after his joes, despite their general tendency to bungle everything. And is he really assisting Diana Taverner, or has he set her up?
Herron does what he does best, he writes a twisty, convoluted plot, with cynical political bon mots placed artfully. He manages to suggest real people that we know from the news, while inventing realistic shenanigans for them to be sent prancing through, lying and scheming all the way. He seems to be telling us that we might as well make entertaining art from the news, rather than just feeling disgusted or despairing.
July 18, 2024
It is with much relief that after investigating whether book number eight ends the Slough House series that I did not find anything suggesting Bad Actors is its conclusion. Not to mention, the ending mentioned a very popular character returning from their latest excursion.
Needless to say, I am hopeful. Love Slough House and all of the amazing characters. Please keep them coming, Mr. Herron.
Needless to say, I am hopeful. Love Slough House and all of the amazing characters. Please keep them coming, Mr. Herron.
June 8, 2024
This is the 8th book in Mick Herron's 'Slough House' (Slow Horses) series, about British MI5 agents who are 'on the outs' with Regents Park and consigned to working in a decrepit building called Slough House. There the slow horses are tasked with boring paperwork in hopes they'll quit. The novels in this series are best read in order because of the continuing story arc.
*****`
The man in charge of Slough House is former spy master Jackson Lamb, who might be the most obnoxious person on the planet. Lamb hurls insults at people, smokes too much, eats too much, is purposely flatulent, wears dirty clothes, has holes in his socks, and always needs a shower. Regardless, Lamb is a clever fellow, and it's hard to get one over on him.
The slow horses are never given anything useful to do, so they sometimes embark on their own 'missions.' This time, an operation gone askew has unfortunate repercussions.
Shirley Dander - who would probably fight a Tyrannosaurus rex - attacked a bus with a clothes iron. Shirley is now in a rehab facility called San, for anger management.
Shirley blames her situation on Catherine Standish, who insists this 'incarceration' is for Shirley's own good.
Lech Wicinki got into some scuffles, and is recovering from his injuries.
Louisa Guy is beating up a mannequin, pretending it's Roddy Ho - whom she blames for the fiasco.
Roddy Ho is oblivious as usual. With his homemade light saber at his side, Roddy is auditioning girls to play Princess Leia at a Cosplay event, hoping to 'get lucky.'
Concurrently, a new slow horse named Ashley Khan is unhappily settling into Slough House. Ashley blames Jackson Lamb for her plight, and she's planning revenge.
Meanwhile, there are mischievous antics in government circles. The prime minister is a useless figurehead......
.....and the government is really being run by the prime minister's aide, a manipulative sleazebag called Anthony Sparrow.
Sparrow plans to get all the government agencies, including MI5, under his control. This will require him to corral Regents Park first chair Diana Taverner.
To accomplish his nefarious goals, Sparrow assembles a think tank, which includes a Swiss academic named Dr. Sophie de Greer. Sophie is a 'superforecaster' of election trends, and an invaluable asset.
However Sophie has disappeared, and Sparrow is anxious to find her. So Sparrow contacts his lofty connections, and gets former Regents Park first chair Claude Whelan to look for her. Whelan's investigation leads to murmurs of 'waterproofing' and 'Red Queen', which have profound reverberations for Diana Taverner.
From here, the plot is very twisty, and comes to involve Russian intelligence agents, including First Desk of the Russian secret service, Vassily Rasnokov. Rasnokov has sneaked into Britain somehow, and Diana Taverner and Jackson Lamb have to scramble to discern his motives.
As usual the story includes plenty of dark humor, as well as misdirection, mistaken identity, manipulation, etc. The climax is a huge action scene, where an oddball partnership develops. Author Mick Herron can be ruthless with his characters, both the good guys and the bad guys - so you never know what's going to happen.
This is a good addition to the Slough House series, and I look forward to seeing what happens next.
You can follow my reviews at http://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com
June 14, 2022
The arrival of a book in Mick Herron’s brilliant Slough House series is always a highlight in my reading year. This series transcends the espionage genre, combining sharp social observation with rapier wit to create a portrait of human foibles, bureaucratic intrigue and world politics.
The author has created a fictional universe of espionage centered around the Secret Services.He has imagined what might happen to agents who have committed some sort of transgression.Rather than being fired, they are relegated to an internal bureaucratic exile in Slough House.Fittingly, Slough House is a decrepit physical structure tucked away from the glittering mainstream halls of Regent Park.The occupants are assigned mind numbing trivial tasks. Yet even as they cope with their disgrace, the denizens of Slough House might secretly harbor aspirations of returning to relevancy. These conflicting desires create an emotional landscape that is filled with hope, despair and delusion.
Jackson Lamb stands at the center of this creation.He is the head of the disgraced “ Slow Horses.” He is a coarse, vituperative relic of the Cold War who has offended everyone in the service yet has the political savvy to have survived many bureaucratic maelstroms. He vilifies those in his charge yet is fiercely protective of them. He is a complex character.Catherine Standish, his second in command observes that” Lamb’s history demanded paranoia: it was the role he had been assigned. In a tragedy he’d be the last man standing, drenched in blood. In a comedy, about the same.”
Lamb and his embattled group always manage to insert themselves in machinations above their pay grade. In this iteration of the series, the world is starting to unshackle from the Covid 19 lockdown.The Prime Minister is spewing forth his vision of post Brexit Britain.Behind the scenes, Anthony Sparrow, a special advisor to the Prime Minister quietly schemes to strip the Service of its power. Sparrow is a devious character who one observer described as a “ homegrown Napoleon: nasty, British, short.” His machinations set him on a path of conflict with the Machiavellian Diana Tanverner, First Desk of the Secret Service. As their paths converge, the long-standing array of richly delineated characters get sucked into the vortex of the conflict with surprising and serpentine results.
The plot is well drawn and satisfying. However, plot is never the attraction of a Herron novel.The heartbeat of the series is the spectrum of emotional and observational acumen that the author brings to his characters and settings. The reader can empathize with the emotions and foibles driving these characters forward.At times one can recognize some of these qualities within ourself. A visit to Mick Herron’s world will linger long after the last word is read and just might make the reader hope to encounter these memorable creations again.
The author has created a fictional universe of espionage centered around the Secret Services.He has imagined what might happen to agents who have committed some sort of transgression.Rather than being fired, they are relegated to an internal bureaucratic exile in Slough House.Fittingly, Slough House is a decrepit physical structure tucked away from the glittering mainstream halls of Regent Park.The occupants are assigned mind numbing trivial tasks. Yet even as they cope with their disgrace, the denizens of Slough House might secretly harbor aspirations of returning to relevancy. These conflicting desires create an emotional landscape that is filled with hope, despair and delusion.
Jackson Lamb stands at the center of this creation.He is the head of the disgraced “ Slow Horses.” He is a coarse, vituperative relic of the Cold War who has offended everyone in the service yet has the political savvy to have survived many bureaucratic maelstroms. He vilifies those in his charge yet is fiercely protective of them. He is a complex character.Catherine Standish, his second in command observes that” Lamb’s history demanded paranoia: it was the role he had been assigned. In a tragedy he’d be the last man standing, drenched in blood. In a comedy, about the same.”
Lamb and his embattled group always manage to insert themselves in machinations above their pay grade. In this iteration of the series, the world is starting to unshackle from the Covid 19 lockdown.The Prime Minister is spewing forth his vision of post Brexit Britain.Behind the scenes, Anthony Sparrow, a special advisor to the Prime Minister quietly schemes to strip the Service of its power. Sparrow is a devious character who one observer described as a “ homegrown Napoleon: nasty, British, short.” His machinations set him on a path of conflict with the Machiavellian Diana Tanverner, First Desk of the Secret Service. As their paths converge, the long-standing array of richly delineated characters get sucked into the vortex of the conflict with surprising and serpentine results.
The plot is well drawn and satisfying. However, plot is never the attraction of a Herron novel.The heartbeat of the series is the spectrum of emotional and observational acumen that the author brings to his characters and settings. The reader can empathize with the emotions and foibles driving these characters forward.At times one can recognize some of these qualities within ourself. A visit to Mick Herron’s world will linger long after the last word is read and just might make the reader hope to encounter these memorable creations again.
June 30, 2024
5 stars
Wow!
The wonderful Slough House series has always been highly enjoyable, but in the last few books, the tone has become increasingly more sombre and the focus zeroed in on corrupt British politics.
Not this time!
The wit, the sparkle, the "omg, did they just do/say that?" of the first books is back in Bad Actors. 🤗 The scene where Shirley Dander smashes up a tourist coach with a clothes iron is among the best of the entire series. (Dander is becoming my fave character, now that Coe is no longer with us)
Even Roddy Ho is less annoying and more comical in this one than usual.
No Slough House deaths this time round, but a new, highly hatable, addition, which shows the series is by far not over. It's fun, fun, fun...just be careful with that tub of snack mix!
Seeing has how many of the titles in this series refer to spook jargon or insider phrases, I'm going to go ahead and place my bet that Yellow Cars will eventually grace the cover of a new Slough House novel one day.
Yellow car!🚕🚕🚕🚕🚕
Wow!
The wonderful Slough House series has always been highly enjoyable, but in the last few books, the tone has become increasingly more sombre and the focus zeroed in on corrupt British politics.
Not this time!
The wit, the sparkle, the "omg, did they just do/say that?" of the first books is back in Bad Actors. 🤗 The scene where Shirley Dander smashes up a tourist coach with a clothes iron is among the best of the entire series. (Dander is becoming my fave character, now that Coe is no longer with us)
Even Roddy Ho is less annoying and more comical in this one than usual.
No Slough House deaths this time round, but a new, highly hatable, addition, which shows the series is by far not over. It's fun, fun, fun...just be careful with that tub of snack mix!
Seeing has how many of the titles in this series refer to spook jargon or insider phrases, I'm going to go ahead and place my bet that Yellow Cars will eventually grace the cover of a new Slough House novel one day.
Yellow car!🚕🚕🚕🚕🚕
February 24, 2022
Bad Actors is the eighth Book in the brilliantly devious Slough House espionage series, set in London, about a group of no-hoper Secret Service agents and their dastardly boss - the revolting but hilariously un-PC Jackson Lamb. I’ve read them all in order and would not recommend beginning the series with this one - you need to know the characters to understand the dynamics at play here. The plot is complicated and you really do have to pay attention to get the full impact. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Gerard Doyle. Set post-Brexit and post-Covid, there’s political intrigue, sinister baddies, black humour, some brilliantly slapstick action scenes, and Lamb’s unique put-downs. These are spy novels for people who don’t read spy novels!
The Slow Horses are the joke of The Service - a bunch of young spies who’ve made mistakes not quite bad enough to get them sacked - so are forced to either work in a crumbling building in North London doing apparently pointless research tasks, or quit with no way back. Their escapades have led them into many dangerous situations, and several of their colleagues have not survived, so they’re all depressed and bored stiff. When a devious political fixer with a plan to take over Regent’s Park needs help finding a missing “super-forecaster”, he enlists the help of former First Desk Claude Whelan, but then some of the Slow Horses get involved, and can’t help but make everything worse - or was that Lamb’s cunning plan all along…?
This was my first audiobook from NetGalley - I was not approved for an eARC, but was dying to read this having loved all the previous books - so it was my first experience of listening through the app. I was slightly dismayed to discover that you can’t speed it up - I normally listen to audiobooks at around the 1.3x rate, so found the narration here very slow. Obviously this won’t be an issue with the finished audiobook. The narrator has a posh and somewhat smarmy accent which works well for most but not all of the characters and did grate at times - on balance I preferred the previous narrator Sean Barrett.
The writing is superb as ever - almost poetic at times - but the genius of these is really the unique characters. Diana Taverner has always been the villainess, but we suddenly find ourselves on her side even though she’s as devious as ever. There’s an interesting new Slow Horse, Ashley Kahn, finding her feet while bent on revenge; Roddy Ho is as obnoxious as ever, and Shirley Dander is awesome, but Lamb steals every scene. The previous book ended on a cliffhanger, and I should warn that we are basically left hanging as to that character’s fate. The Apple TV adaptation begins in April and I for one can’t wait to see it, given the quality cast - if it’s even half as good as the books it’ll be a winner.
Thanks to NetGalley and RB media for the Audio ARC. Bad Actors is released on May 10th.
The Slow Horses are the joke of The Service - a bunch of young spies who’ve made mistakes not quite bad enough to get them sacked - so are forced to either work in a crumbling building in North London doing apparently pointless research tasks, or quit with no way back. Their escapades have led them into many dangerous situations, and several of their colleagues have not survived, so they’re all depressed and bored stiff. When a devious political fixer with a plan to take over Regent’s Park needs help finding a missing “super-forecaster”, he enlists the help of former First Desk Claude Whelan, but then some of the Slow Horses get involved, and can’t help but make everything worse - or was that Lamb’s cunning plan all along…?
This was my first audiobook from NetGalley - I was not approved for an eARC, but was dying to read this having loved all the previous books - so it was my first experience of listening through the app. I was slightly dismayed to discover that you can’t speed it up - I normally listen to audiobooks at around the 1.3x rate, so found the narration here very slow. Obviously this won’t be an issue with the finished audiobook. The narrator has a posh and somewhat smarmy accent which works well for most but not all of the characters and did grate at times - on balance I preferred the previous narrator Sean Barrett.
The writing is superb as ever - almost poetic at times - but the genius of these is really the unique characters. Diana Taverner has always been the villainess, but we suddenly find ourselves on her side even though she’s as devious as ever. There’s an interesting new Slow Horse, Ashley Kahn, finding her feet while bent on revenge; Roddy Ho is as obnoxious as ever, and Shirley Dander is awesome, but Lamb steals every scene. The previous book ended on a cliffhanger, and I should warn that we are basically left hanging as to that character’s fate. The Apple TV adaptation begins in April and I for one can’t wait to see it, given the quality cast - if it’s even half as good as the books it’ll be a winner.
Thanks to NetGalley and RB media for the Audio ARC. Bad Actors is released on May 10th.
May 21, 2023
This is the eighth in the Slough House series and finds a rather depleted cast of Slow Horses - Jackson Lamb, Catherine Standish, Louisa Guy, Roddy Ho, Lech Wicinski and new member Ashley Khan. However, as readers of the series know, things often change, characters come and go, fall from favour and - admittedly, seldom find their way back. Diana Taverner is one character though, who i more than capable with dealing with a threat and in this complicated plot, she will find herself tested as never before.
Political intrigue begins with Oliver Nash meeting up with previous First Desk, Claude Wheelan. Nash wants a favour and Wheelan should have enough sense to steer clear, but convinces himself to look into the whereabouts of a missing associate of Anthony Sparrow, not a million miles from a previous special advisor to the PM. Before long, we are involved in a messy conspiracy involving Russian spies, an attempt to remove Lady Di as First Desk, safe houses, mixed messages and jumping to conclusions which result in some very violent scenes.
Mick Herron has great fun teasing the readers with this one, making us wait until the very end to conclude a storyline from the last book, teasing actors from the new TV series, with Lamb's laconic, "Gary is a bit suspect," when asked about suspicious names and understanding that readers are now invested enough that he can expect their attention to detail when he unveils more interesting and involved storylines. Along with that he has Roddy Ho with a light saber, Shirley Dander attempting to iron and a cameo appearance from John Batchelor. Loved every word! Great series, great author, can't wait for the next one!
Political intrigue begins with Oliver Nash meeting up with previous First Desk, Claude Wheelan. Nash wants a favour and Wheelan should have enough sense to steer clear, but convinces himself to look into the whereabouts of a missing associate of Anthony Sparrow, not a million miles from a previous special advisor to the PM. Before long, we are involved in a messy conspiracy involving Russian spies, an attempt to remove Lady Di as First Desk, safe houses, mixed messages and jumping to conclusions which result in some very violent scenes.
Mick Herron has great fun teasing the readers with this one, making us wait until the very end to conclude a storyline from the last book, teasing actors from the new TV series, with Lamb's laconic, "Gary is a bit suspect," when asked about suspicious names and understanding that readers are now invested enough that he can expect their attention to detail when he unveils more interesting and involved storylines. Along with that he has Roddy Ho with a light saber, Shirley Dander attempting to iron and a cameo appearance from John Batchelor. Loved every word! Great series, great author, can't wait for the next one!
August 12, 2025
A new Mick Herron Slough House book is always cause for celebration.
Needless to say if you have not read the previous books in this series then do that before reading Bad Actors (2022). It's not essential but it is a pleasure and helps to contextualise this latest installment.
Mick Herron is a superb writer: beautiful prose, humour, inventiveness, thrilling action scenes, creative dialogue, and all aligned to consummate, precision engineered plots.
In Bad Actors a new character takes centre stage. He's the prime minister's special advisor and enforcer, and the power behind the throne. He's also a disruptor and a keen blogger. Who could possibly have inspired him?
To my intense relief, Bad Actors is less tragic and more comedic than some more recent Slough House novels, but still every bit as good as those books that preceded it.
If you've not read this series, or this book, don't delay, you're in for a treat.
EDIT: I've now read this book three times and it always delivers
4/5
A governmental think-tank, whose remit is to curb the independence of the intelligence service, has lost one of its key members, and Claude Whelan—one-time head of MI5's Regent’s Park—is tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads straight back to the Park itself, with Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Diana overplayed her hand at last? What’s her counterpart, Moscow’s First Desk, doing in London? And does Jackson Lamb know more than he’s telling?
Over at Slough House, with Shirley Dander in rehab, Roddy Ho in dress rehearsal, and new recruit Ashley Khan turning up the heat, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation . . .
There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned.
Needless to say if you have not read the previous books in this series then do that before reading Bad Actors (2022). It's not essential but it is a pleasure and helps to contextualise this latest installment.
Mick Herron is a superb writer: beautiful prose, humour, inventiveness, thrilling action scenes, creative dialogue, and all aligned to consummate, precision engineered plots.
In Bad Actors a new character takes centre stage. He's the prime minister's special advisor and enforcer, and the power behind the throne. He's also a disruptor and a keen blogger. Who could possibly have inspired him?
To my intense relief, Bad Actors is less tragic and more comedic than some more recent Slough House novels, but still every bit as good as those books that preceded it.
If you've not read this series, or this book, don't delay, you're in for a treat.
EDIT: I've now read this book three times and it always delivers
4/5
A governmental think-tank, whose remit is to curb the independence of the intelligence service, has lost one of its key members, and Claude Whelan—one-time head of MI5's Regent’s Park—is tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads straight back to the Park itself, with Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Diana overplayed her hand at last? What’s her counterpart, Moscow’s First Desk, doing in London? And does Jackson Lamb know more than he’s telling?
Over at Slough House, with Shirley Dander in rehab, Roddy Ho in dress rehearsal, and new recruit Ashley Khan turning up the heat, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation . . .
There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned.
May 10, 2024
Slough House having ended with a teasing cliffhanger, I could not resist plunging immediately into Bad Actors, listed as the final book in the series.
No regrets about that decision - this is definitely a winner. Most of the plot elements revolve around MI5’s First Desk, Diana Taverner. Events are pressing in on Lady Di from multiple directions, and eventually she is forced to turn to Jackson Lamb and his Slough House crew to extract her from the worst of the threats.
Herron engages in some shifty timing in this one, exposing the plot and the roles played by various characters, non-sequentially. He loops in stray bits with dexterity, including some elements first introduced in novellas 5.5 and 6.5 that now come full circle.
By the way, that cliffhanger IS resolved, not until the very end of the book, but in a satisfying way. There is a lack of finality to the conclusion leaving the door open for Herron to return to the series if he chooses. I was reminded of how Watson never actually saw Holmes’ body at the bottom of Reichenbach Falls.
I also found myself smiling at an indirect reference to George Smiley buried in the ending section. It tied in nicely with the look back at the Cold War that is another key plot element.
Herron is truly a master of his craft.
No regrets about that decision - this is definitely a winner. Most of the plot elements revolve around MI5’s First Desk, Diana Taverner. Events are pressing in on Lady Di from multiple directions, and eventually she is forced to turn to Jackson Lamb and his Slough House crew to extract her from the worst of the threats.
Herron engages in some shifty timing in this one, exposing the plot and the roles played by various characters, non-sequentially. He loops in stray bits with dexterity, including some elements first introduced in novellas 5.5 and 6.5 that now come full circle.
By the way, that cliffhanger IS resolved, not until the very end of the book, but in a satisfying way. There is a lack of finality to the conclusion leaving the door open for Herron to return to the series if he chooses. I was reminded of how Watson never actually saw Holmes’ body at the bottom of Reichenbach Falls.
I also found myself smiling at an indirect reference to George Smiley buried in the ending section. It tied in nicely with the look back at the Cold War that is another key plot element.
Herron is truly a master of his craft.
December 16, 2024
More dark laughs and life-or-death action in this ever-reliably brilliant series. The only downside is I have now caught up and have to wait until the next installment is published in 2025. Lamb, as ever, is th star of the show, but All the recurring characters get their moment to shine and the dialogue, satire, insults and humour are as on point as ever.
June 19, 2022
“… the role of the slow horses is to embrace unfulfillment and boredom, to look back in disappointment, stare round in dismay, and understand that life is not an audition, except for the parts that are, and those are the parts they’ve failed.”
Bad Actors is the eighth book in the Slough House/Jackson Lamb series by award-winning British author, Mick Herron. Dr Sophie de Greer, hand-picked by the PM’s trusted right-hand man, Anthony Sparrow for an important role, is missing, and the word is that First Desk Di Taverner’s people at Regent’s Park are involved.
Chair of Limitations, Oliver Nash has been tasked by Sparrow with finding out, but he’s sure that Sparrow has an agenda. Semi-retired former First Desk, Claude Whelan is sent to look for her and, when he chats with Catherine Standish about it, he gets an idea of where she might be.
Days earlier though, milkman John Bachelor had spotted the young lady, and is sure she’s not quite whom she purports to be, something he shared with his friend, Lech Wicinski. So the slow horses, minus River Cartwright but ever eager for action, decide a bit of covert surveillance is in order.
Tightly plotted as always, and close-to-the-bone topical, this installment has the slow horses, and a few others, seeing plenty of action. Apart from guns, knives and fists, weapons brandished include a baseball bat, a hot chilli, a guide book, a table lamp, a spork, a head-lamp, an iron and a broom.
The Russian GRU’s First Desk makes an appearance, along with a gang of soccer hooligans, and a certain young man on the hub looks a likely candidate for Slough House after an encounter with Lady Di.
We can rely on Herron to unfailingly raise Lamb to new levels of obnoxiousness (yes, it is actually possible) while, outside of his IT prowess, Roddy Ho is no less deluded about his ability and appeal. The manifestation of the newly arrived Ashley Khan’s anger with Lamb almost backfires on her, but she does gets Ho a date, and Ho’s unlikely teamwork with Shirley Dander surprises them both.
Later, tucked away in an exclusive rehab facility to deal with her anger management issues, Shirley manages to engage in even more violence than usual, and finds an unexpected rapport with Claude Whelan.
The dialogue is always a source of humour and one might wonder if there is a forum where readers can offer Herron increasingly objectionable insults for Lamb’s use.
His description of characters is original and inventive: Sparrow is “nasty, British and short” and “the weasel under the Cabinet table, teeth bared and dripping” while, of Diana Taverner, “Even Nash, technically one of Regent’s Park’s string-pullers, knew to tread carefully around Diana. String-pullers carry weight, but Diana carried scissors.”
Fans f the series always look forward to an outing with the slow horses, while a reread fills the reader with anticipatory glee at the prospect of so many delicious and darkly funny moments set within the clever plot. Due to the guaranteed but unpredictable laugh-out-loud nature of the story, a warning must be issued: best not read on public transport, if you have continence issues, or whilst eating/drinking. Mick Herron never disappoints.
Bad Actors is the eighth book in the Slough House/Jackson Lamb series by award-winning British author, Mick Herron. Dr Sophie de Greer, hand-picked by the PM’s trusted right-hand man, Anthony Sparrow for an important role, is missing, and the word is that First Desk Di Taverner’s people at Regent’s Park are involved.
Chair of Limitations, Oliver Nash has been tasked by Sparrow with finding out, but he’s sure that Sparrow has an agenda. Semi-retired former First Desk, Claude Whelan is sent to look for her and, when he chats with Catherine Standish about it, he gets an idea of where she might be.
Days earlier though, milkman John Bachelor had spotted the young lady, and is sure she’s not quite whom she purports to be, something he shared with his friend, Lech Wicinski. So the slow horses, minus River Cartwright but ever eager for action, decide a bit of covert surveillance is in order.
Tightly plotted as always, and close-to-the-bone topical, this installment has the slow horses, and a few others, seeing plenty of action. Apart from guns, knives and fists, weapons brandished include a baseball bat, a hot chilli, a guide book, a table lamp, a spork, a head-lamp, an iron and a broom.
The Russian GRU’s First Desk makes an appearance, along with a gang of soccer hooligans, and a certain young man on the hub looks a likely candidate for Slough House after an encounter with Lady Di.
We can rely on Herron to unfailingly raise Lamb to new levels of obnoxiousness (yes, it is actually possible) while, outside of his IT prowess, Roddy Ho is no less deluded about his ability and appeal. The manifestation of the newly arrived Ashley Khan’s anger with Lamb almost backfires on her, but she does gets Ho a date, and Ho’s unlikely teamwork with Shirley Dander surprises them both.
Later, tucked away in an exclusive rehab facility to deal with her anger management issues, Shirley manages to engage in even more violence than usual, and finds an unexpected rapport with Claude Whelan.
The dialogue is always a source of humour and one might wonder if there is a forum where readers can offer Herron increasingly objectionable insults for Lamb’s use.
His description of characters is original and inventive: Sparrow is “nasty, British and short” and “the weasel under the Cabinet table, teeth bared and dripping” while, of Diana Taverner, “Even Nash, technically one of Regent’s Park’s string-pullers, knew to tread carefully around Diana. String-pullers carry weight, but Diana carried scissors.”
Fans f the series always look forward to an outing with the slow horses, while a reread fills the reader with anticipatory glee at the prospect of so many delicious and darkly funny moments set within the clever plot. Due to the guaranteed but unpredictable laugh-out-loud nature of the story, a warning must be issued: best not read on public transport, if you have continence issues, or whilst eating/drinking. Mick Herron never disappoints.
May 19, 2022
Bad Actors is one of Mick Herron’s best – which is saying a lot. It’s a great blend of gripping thriller, humour and political satire; this time a Special Advisor in Number 10 is bullying all around him and launching power grabs over all sorts of departments – in the name of “simplification”, “clarification of structures”, etc. This includes the Service, where it’s head, Diana Taverner, finds herself under threat. Meanwhile, Shirley Dander finds herself – hilariously and sometimes touchingly – in rehab after a classic “incident” which we learn about some way into the book, Ashley the new recruit is resentfully trying to get revenge on Jackson Lamb (guess how that goes) and Slough House gets pulled into some dark and violent political plotting.
I was completely gripped by the plot. It’s vintage Herron, with even more overt political satire this time. The Dominic Cummings-alike is absolutely plain, there are exchanges like: "The PM has one eye on this," "I think the PM has both eyes on the nearest pair of tits" etc. The descriptions of shady political dealing and “reshaping the narrative” - i.e. lying – are terrifyingly plausible and the corridors of government are peopled by those "...whose ingrained sense of privilege rendered him impervious to damage." It’s cynical, angry and bang on the mark.
Lamb himself is still brilliant and magnificently repellent, although not quite as linguistically gross as he sometimes is and therefore slightly less funny – but he still made me laugh out loud several times. Lady Di is superb (I almost warmed to her!), Roddy Ho is on very fine self-deluding form, there are some terrific action set-pieces, Claude Whelan becomes a rather more interesting character...and so on.
In short, it’s great. Don’t start here; I strongly recommend that you begin with Slow Horses and read the entire series. If you’ve already done that, you’ll love this. I did.
I was completely gripped by the plot. It’s vintage Herron, with even more overt political satire this time. The Dominic Cummings-alike is absolutely plain, there are exchanges like: "The PM has one eye on this," "I think the PM has both eyes on the nearest pair of tits" etc. The descriptions of shady political dealing and “reshaping the narrative” - i.e. lying – are terrifyingly plausible and the corridors of government are peopled by those "...whose ingrained sense of privilege rendered him impervious to damage." It’s cynical, angry and bang on the mark.
Lamb himself is still brilliant and magnificently repellent, although not quite as linguistically gross as he sometimes is and therefore slightly less funny – but he still made me laugh out loud several times. Lady Di is superb (I almost warmed to her!), Roddy Ho is on very fine self-deluding form, there are some terrific action set-pieces, Claude Whelan becomes a rather more interesting character...and so on.
In short, it’s great. Don’t start here; I strongly recommend that you begin with Slow Horses and read the entire series. If you’ve already done that, you’ll love this. I did.
May 22, 2023
The thought of Anthony Sparrow, special adviser to the PM, having made a connection of any kind with Moscow's First Desk was going to bear close examination
Hurrah, Herron is on absolutely top form in this latest outing for the slow horses of Slough House: this is post-Brexit, post-covid with an astute finger on the pulse of politics from the tragicomedy of the UK's Tory government ruled by an unelected spad (special adviser) and shamelessly tearing up constitutional rulebooks in the name of greed and personal power, to a super-prescient revitalisation of the Cold War with Number 10 in bed with (for once, not literally) the Russians.
Along the way we have a complex story that builds on the previous books. Herron mixes up the narrative structure, this time, with a long flashback at the centre - and his sharp wit is especially honed by the last couple of years of political absurdities, lies, and dangerous narcissism emanating from Downing Street.
Amidst the laser-accurate political pot-shots, there is the usual chaos caused by the denizens of Slough House: Shirley demonstrates exactly how lethal an iron can be, Roddy Ho is Zoom-dating, and Louisa teams up with Lech while Jackson Lamb crosses swords with Diana Taverner again, and we are reminded of all that they have in common.
Sharp, smart, hilarious and with a nail-biting final sequence (are we about to lose another slow horse...?), this is one of my reads of the year!
October 13, 2024
It's slowly dawning on me that First Desk doesn't think her Slow Horses are as useless as she pretends. And for some strange reason, they have her back too! The devil you know, I guess.
This instalment offered up all the things I know and love about the series, but for a couple of reasons I didn't think it was quite as strong as other recent ones. Firstly, Roddy was just a bit too Roddy, even for him. Luckily his role wasn't as prominent this time. Secondly, I think some of the political nuance went over my head, even though I'm generally pretty good at keeping up with world news/events. That's on me.
But on a positive note, Lamb was very Lamb, Lady Di got the opportunity to display some real joe skills (woohoo!), and best of all my anxieties about one of my favourite characters were quelled. Roll on #9!
This instalment offered up all the things I know and love about the series, but for a couple of reasons I didn't think it was quite as strong as other recent ones. Firstly, Roddy was just a bit too Roddy, even for him. Luckily his role wasn't as prominent this time. Secondly, I think some of the political nuance went over my head, even though I'm generally pretty good at keeping up with world news/events. That's on me.
But on a positive note, Lamb was very Lamb, Lady Di got the opportunity to display some real joe skills (woohoo!), and best of all my anxieties about one of my favourite characters were quelled. Roll on #9!
June 18, 2022
Politicians Make Bad Actors
Review of the Recorded Books audiobook edition (May 10, 2022) narrated by Gerard Doyle and released simultaneously with the Soho Crime hardcover.
Bad Actors follows directly along from the events of Slough House (#7 2021). The cliffhanger fate of a major character in the last book is teasingly dangled before us throughout the new one, but is finally revealed before the end (no spoiler here). A new Slow Horse is brought on board with Ashley Khan, who had been embarrassed by Jackson Lamb in the previous book. Her fate in MI5 is to be banished to join the misfits of Slough House as a result, where she connives a campaign against her new chief. Shirley Dander is in rehab again, but looking to escape and Roddy Ho is interviewing possible dates online via Zoom for a Star Wars cosplay convention. There is suspense and comedy aplenty as always.
Actor Christopher Chung (who plays Roddy Ho in the Apple TV+ 'Slow Horses' series), author Mick Herron, and actor Rosalind Eleazar (who plays Louisa Guy in the Apple TV+ 'Slow Horses' series) at a book release event for "Bad Actors". Image sourced from Mick Herron's Facebook
The meat of the story is the disappearance of a top political advisor and the subsequent appearance in London of the Russian FSB's First Desk. MI5's First Desk Diana Taverner is suspected to be behind the disappearance and political forces are arrayed against her. Will she again be forced to align herself with Slough House's slovenly, flatulent Jackson Lamb and his Slow Horses to beat back the bad actors?
The narration performance by now series regular Gerard Doyle was excellent as always.
Trivia and Links
I understand from some UK reviews that the Anthony Sparrow character is a parody of Dominic Cummings, a former real-life advisor to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Their fates are completely different however.
There is a Slough House glossary at SpyWrite.com (with some spoilers obviously, but the most major spoilers are hidden behind white script which you have to mouse over in order to read) which is extremely useful if you are trying to follow all of the characters and story arcs of the series and looking for definitions to the words and expressions of author Mick Herron's invented spy terminology. The glossary does not appear to have many updates related to books #7 & #8 however, but is still good for the characters and background of the earlier books.
Bad Actors could be the basis for a future Season 8 of the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses (2022 - ?), if the show is extended past its current renewal up to a Season 4. You can watch the Season 2 teaser (based on Book 2 "Dead Lions") on YouTube here. You can watch the Season 1 trailer (based on Book 1 "Slow Horses") on YouTube here.
Review of the Recorded Books audiobook edition (May 10, 2022) narrated by Gerard Doyle and released simultaneously with the Soho Crime hardcover.
She bobbed a little, once, twice, preparing her move.I am pretty much at the end of my binge read/listen of the currently available novels and novellas of Mick Herron's Slough House/Slow Horses (2010-2022 current) series. I have yet to read the Jackson Lamb prequel short story The Last Dead Letter (#6.4) contained in the collection Dolphin Junction: Stories (2021). I understand that there are appearances by Slough House characters in Reconstruction (2008) with Bad Sam Chapman a.o. and in Nobody Walks (2015) with J.K. Coe a.o. The latter 2 are not considered Slough House books though, but rather stand-alones.
"What's that in your hand?", the driver asked.
"We deal in lead friend", she said, although actually it was her iron, and launched herself off the ground. It was nearly ballet, very nearly ballet, maybe a little less delicate.
- Slough House's Shirley Dander channels Steve McQueen from the movie The Magnificent Seven.
Bad Actors follows directly along from the events of Slough House (#7 2021). The cliffhanger fate of a major character in the last book is teasingly dangled before us throughout the new one, but is finally revealed before the end (no spoiler here). A new Slow Horse is brought on board with Ashley Khan, who had been embarrassed by Jackson Lamb in the previous book. Her fate in MI5 is to be banished to join the misfits of Slough House as a result, where she connives a campaign against her new chief. Shirley Dander is in rehab again, but looking to escape and Roddy Ho is interviewing possible dates online via Zoom for a Star Wars cosplay convention. There is suspense and comedy aplenty as always.
Actor Christopher Chung (who plays Roddy Ho in the Apple TV+ 'Slow Horses' series), author Mick Herron, and actor Rosalind Eleazar (who plays Louisa Guy in the Apple TV+ 'Slow Horses' series) at a book release event for "Bad Actors". Image sourced from Mick Herron's Facebook
The meat of the story is the disappearance of a top political advisor and the subsequent appearance in London of the Russian FSB's First Desk. MI5's First Desk Diana Taverner is suspected to be behind the disappearance and political forces are arrayed against her. Will she again be forced to align herself with Slough House's slovenly, flatulent Jackson Lamb and his Slow Horses to beat back the bad actors?
The narration performance by now series regular Gerard Doyle was excellent as always.
Trivia and Links
I understand from some UK reviews that the Anthony Sparrow character is a parody of Dominic Cummings, a former real-life advisor to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Their fates are completely different however.
There is a Slough House glossary at SpyWrite.com (with some spoilers obviously, but the most major spoilers are hidden behind white script which you have to mouse over in order to read) which is extremely useful if you are trying to follow all of the characters and story arcs of the series and looking for definitions to the words and expressions of author Mick Herron's invented spy terminology. The glossary does not appear to have many updates related to books #7 & #8 however, but is still good for the characters and background of the earlier books.
Bad Actors could be the basis for a future Season 8 of the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses (2022 - ?), if the show is extended past its current renewal up to a Season 4. You can watch the Season 2 teaser (based on Book 2 "Dead Lions") on YouTube here. You can watch the Season 1 trailer (based on Book 1 "Slow Horses") on YouTube here.
March 6, 2025
Bad Actors has a distinctly satirical edge which works wonderfully well. Another brilliant book in this consistently fantastic series.
This book culminating in the mother of all punch ups - MI5 versus Lazio Ultras!!
A must read 📚.
This book culminating in the mother of all punch ups - MI5 versus Lazio Ultras!!
A must read 📚.
August 3, 2025
Outstanding!
December 26, 2023
For me this was the best so far.
Everyone (including the newbie) are on form. The plot is, as usual, mind-bogglingly convoluted until Mr Herron pulls the separate strands together and the light bulb comes on over your head.
This one has Russian spies aplenty, a PM spinning Brexit's merits to a disbelieving public, hooligans (of all types), Shirley in rehab, Ho in bother, Lamb flatulent and devious and Diana finding herself in need of Slough House. So nothing new there at all. It is put together so beautifully I feel like awarding Mr Herron several more stars.
There are some brilliant one-liners in this. It is funny, it is smart and I defy one person not to feel a burst of joy at the end when the pigeons come home to roost on certain members of the PMs coterie. I'll say no more but I would have preferred Mr Herron's end to certain satchel-toting advisors than the reality. Thankyou for making my day, even if was only in my imagination.
Also thankyou for the Thelma and Louise line from Catherine. Genius.
I'm all caught up now so it's stand-alones and "tales from" for me until the next Slough House episode.
Everyone (including the newbie) are on form. The plot is, as usual, mind-bogglingly convoluted until Mr Herron pulls the separate strands together and the light bulb comes on over your head.
This one has Russian spies aplenty, a PM spinning Brexit's merits to a disbelieving public, hooligans (of all types), Shirley in rehab, Ho in bother, Lamb flatulent and devious and Diana finding herself in need of Slough House. So nothing new there at all. It is put together so beautifully I feel like awarding Mr Herron several more stars.
There are some brilliant one-liners in this. It is funny, it is smart and I defy one person not to feel a burst of joy at the end when the pigeons come home to roost on certain members of the PMs coterie. I'll say no more but I would have preferred Mr Herron's end to certain satchel-toting advisors than the reality. Thankyou for making my day, even if was only in my imagination.
Also thankyou for the Thelma and Louise line from Catherine. Genius.
I'm all caught up now so it's stand-alones and "tales from" for me until the next Slough House episode.
February 19, 2022
The Slow Horses of Slough House during the pandemic and the onslaught of Brexit. Mick Herron once again in full display of his wit mixed with his ability to craft action sequences with a plot that seems a right fit for this audible format, Superstar reader Gerard Doyle's droll voice perfectly and evenly paced provides narration.
December 8, 2022
The Slow Horses get embroiled in the infighting between agencies of Her Majesty’s government.
Dorset All-Night Petrol Station
My audio edition was about 11 hours long. A dead tree copy would be about 360 pages. The original UK copyright was 2022.
Mick Herron is a British mystery and thriller novelist. He has more than 20-books published, in two series and standalone. This is the eighth book in his Slough House series. This was also the eighth book I’ve read by the author. The previous being the seventh book in the series' Slough House (my review).
Gerard Doyle being the long-time series narrator. He does a very able job, to the point where I was annoyed the characters in the Slow Horses (2022- ) television mini-series don’t speak with his voice.
Its strongly recommended that the previous books in the series be read before this one. Otherwise, the important, long-term Slow Horses, series plotlines will not be easily understood. In particular, this book makes references to the missing Cartwright character and a cliffhanger involving that character in the previous Slough House (Slough House #7) which were not resolved here.
In this story the Slow Horses get involved in the infighting between agencies in HMG. (What else is new?) In particular, between 10 Downing Street and Regents Park. Both the Camorra and the GRU are likewise involved. This book continues with a series theme of HMG bureaucrats vs. HMG bureaucrats leveraging the resources of M5 to wreck more havoc than foreign espionage and its efforts to destabilize the government.
The writing was on-par with the previous books in the series. Herron has a vaguely florid writing style that demands attention. I never fail to be amused by his wit. This story contained more of his wry humor than all the previous books. However, it’s very English. A lot of it was political. You would need some knowledge of life and politics in the UK to catch it all. This book also differs from other books in the series style-wise. Typically at the end of a book, the author treats the reader to a ghostly third person omniscient soliloquy by Slough House. (I’ve always looked forward to it.) In this book, he opens the story with a long one and closes it with a shorter one. Meeting the Spirit of Slough House so early in the book initially left me a bit confused.
In this story continues dysfunctional power struggles within HMG. With “Lady Di” Taverner ascendant at MI5, the struggles have widened to be between MI5 and other agencies. In this case 10 Downing Street and the PM. Herron has ground the ax of, the enemies of the state have become a pretext for HMG agencies to cripple each other through infighting which just abets the efforts of the real foreign threat for several books. Then there is the series plot-line of arch-spymaster Lamb and his posse of sociopathic rejects out-spying both Regents Park and both external and internal threats.
Of interest, was that the COVID-pandemic was mentioned in this book. It was absent from the previous book (Slough House despite it having been written a full year into the pandemic. Looking back, this contemporary reference makes the timeline for the series a little hinky? The series is 12-years old. This book is set in 2020 give or take a year. How long have the Slow Horses been exiled to Slough House?
Still this story had a few problems not found in the better laid-out earlier books of the series. There were a lot of balls in the air at the end. I was frankly amazed that Lamb was able to out-plot and coordinate: MI5, the GRU, “Number 10”, and the Camorra? Lady Di also managed to, much too quickly, sweep under the rug a scandal, and several dangling: felonies likely reported in the Media, immigration violations, and political crisis in two short paragraphs to bring the story to an end.
Characters were the Usual Suspects. The protagonist was the Falstaffian/Machiavellian Lamb. Missing from this book was his co-protagonist River Cartwright. He disappeared in the last book’s execrable cliffhanger. Herron pushed-in the knife by keeping him out for another book. Shirley Dander plays a large part in the book. In this case, she’s been exiled to “The San” (see below) for substance abuse and her anger and violent tendencies. I liked her much better after this book. My fave characer, the incel Roddy “The Rodster” Ho got some play, but barely enough. A new character, Ashley Khan, the Pakistani dentist’s daughter with attitude was introduced. She was a rookie MI4 “Ops Specialist” created in a previous book, “Lady Di” set her to surveil Lamb. He broke her arm. Lady Di told him, “You broke it—you bought it.” And so a new Slow Horse was born.
Herron always includes a few scenes involving domestic travel, typically to a UK resort area. I assume these opportunities offer him an expenses-paid vacation? Action scenes in this book take place in London and MI5’s exclusive, long-stay mental health facility (psychiatric unit) called “The San” in Dorset. I suspect The San is located east of Winborne Minster or Ferndown coming from London on the M3?
This was yet another story of Herron’s Slow Horses series documenting Jackson Lamb’s conflict with the MI5 bureaucracy and threats against the state. As per usual it leaves us with the eventual success of his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits. It has been a challenge for me to sustain interest in the series. After all, its up to eight books and its been going for over twelve years? How many years can Lamb’s cast of misfits outperform the professional spies of MI5’s Regents Park? This book contains a lot that too-predictable, series’ plot of Joe’s vs. MI5 Bureaucrats. I could also see that Herron was trying to Mix It Up. The story was almost comic it places. The usual co-protagonist River Cartwright was missing from the lineup. These were both departures from Slow Horses series norm. However, I’m just not sure they’re enough of a departure from a series that is longer at the tooth than that old dog Jackson Lamb?
Dorset All-Night Petrol Station
My audio edition was about 11 hours long. A dead tree copy would be about 360 pages. The original UK copyright was 2022.
Mick Herron is a British mystery and thriller novelist. He has more than 20-books published, in two series and standalone. This is the eighth book in his Slough House series. This was also the eighth book I’ve read by the author. The previous being the seventh book in the series' Slough House (my review).
Gerard Doyle being the long-time series narrator. He does a very able job, to the point where I was annoyed the characters in the Slow Horses (2022- ) television mini-series don’t speak with his voice.
Its strongly recommended that the previous books in the series be read before this one. Otherwise, the important, long-term Slow Horses, series plotlines will not be easily understood. In particular, this book makes references to the missing Cartwright character and a cliffhanger involving that character in the previous Slough House (Slough House #7) which were not resolved here.
In this story the Slow Horses get involved in the infighting between agencies in HMG. (What else is new?) In particular, between 10 Downing Street and Regents Park. Both the Camorra and the GRU are likewise involved. This book continues with a series theme of HMG bureaucrats vs. HMG bureaucrats leveraging the resources of M5 to wreck more havoc than foreign espionage and its efforts to destabilize the government.
The writing was on-par with the previous books in the series. Herron has a vaguely florid writing style that demands attention. I never fail to be amused by his wit. This story contained more of his wry humor than all the previous books. However, it’s very English. A lot of it was political. You would need some knowledge of life and politics in the UK to catch it all. This book also differs from other books in the series style-wise. Typically at the end of a book, the author treats the reader to a ghostly third person omniscient soliloquy by Slough House. (I’ve always looked forward to it.) In this book, he opens the story with a long one and closes it with a shorter one. Meeting the Spirit of Slough House so early in the book initially left me a bit confused.
In this story continues dysfunctional power struggles within HMG. With “Lady Di” Taverner ascendant at MI5, the struggles have widened to be between MI5 and other agencies. In this case 10 Downing Street and the PM. Herron has ground the ax of, the enemies of the state have become a pretext for HMG agencies to cripple each other through infighting which just abets the efforts of the real foreign threat for several books. Then there is the series plot-line of arch-spymaster Lamb and his posse of sociopathic rejects out-spying both Regents Park and both external and internal threats.
Of interest, was that the COVID-pandemic was mentioned in this book. It was absent from the previous book (Slough House despite it having been written a full year into the pandemic. Looking back, this contemporary reference makes the timeline for the series a little hinky? The series is 12-years old. This book is set in 2020 give or take a year. How long have the Slow Horses been exiled to Slough House?
Still this story had a few problems not found in the better laid-out earlier books of the series. There were a lot of balls in the air at the end. I was frankly amazed that Lamb was able to out-plot and coordinate: MI5, the GRU, “Number 10”, and the Camorra? Lady Di also managed to, much too quickly, sweep under the rug a scandal, and several dangling: felonies likely reported in the Media, immigration violations, and political crisis in two short paragraphs to bring the story to an end.
Characters were the Usual Suspects. The protagonist was the Falstaffian/Machiavellian Lamb. Missing from this book was his co-protagonist River Cartwright. He disappeared in the last book’s execrable cliffhanger. Herron pushed-in the knife by keeping him out for another book. Shirley Dander plays a large part in the book. In this case, she’s been exiled to “The San” (see below) for substance abuse and her anger and violent tendencies. I liked her much better after this book. My fave characer, the incel Roddy “The Rodster” Ho got some play, but barely enough. A new character, Ashley Khan, the Pakistani dentist’s daughter with attitude was introduced. She was a rookie MI4 “Ops Specialist” created in a previous book, “Lady Di” set her to surveil Lamb. He broke her arm. Lady Di told him, “You broke it—you bought it.” And so a new Slow Horse was born.
Herron always includes a few scenes involving domestic travel, typically to a UK resort area. I assume these opportunities offer him an expenses-paid vacation? Action scenes in this book take place in London and MI5’s exclusive, long-stay mental health facility (psychiatric unit) called “The San” in Dorset. I suspect The San is located east of Winborne Minster or Ferndown coming from London on the M3?
This was yet another story of Herron’s Slow Horses series documenting Jackson Lamb’s conflict with the MI5 bureaucracy and threats against the state. As per usual it leaves us with the eventual success of his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits. It has been a challenge for me to sustain interest in the series. After all, its up to eight books and its been going for over twelve years? How many years can Lamb’s cast of misfits outperform the professional spies of MI5’s Regents Park? This book contains a lot that too-predictable, series’ plot of Joe’s vs. MI5 Bureaucrats. I could also see that Herron was trying to Mix It Up. The story was almost comic it places. The usual co-protagonist River Cartwright was missing from the lineup. These were both departures from Slow Horses series norm. However, I’m just not sure they’re enough of a departure from a series that is longer at the tooth than that old dog Jackson Lamb?
June 25, 2025
Favorite quotes:
"To back down from a principle was just baring your throat for the bite."
"There was no battle as fiercely fought as a girl's with her mother."
"As the PM's enforcer Sparrow wasn't as high profile as his predecessor had been, it would've been challenging to maintain that level of unpopularity without barbecuing an infant on live television."
At a team meeting, Jackson Lamb announces, "Today's the day the teddybear's having a picnic and I want to know who's invited" the attendees look bewildered and ask for clarification. Lamb responds with his renowned sarcasm, "Christ, I should use flashcards!"
Then, he explains, "The Russian Embassy, Russian bear, get it? The Russian Embassy's hosting a shindig this evening and I'd like Kung Foo panda here to provide a list of those turning up for caviar and chips."
Conversation between Catherine Standish and Charlie Whelan:
"Anything on the scale you're suggesting requires organization and resources. We have a fridge whose door won't close properly, does that sound like we fit the bill?"
Whelan responds, "It sounds like that's the way someone wants you to look."
Conversation between Jackson Lamb and Dr Sophie de Greer:
Lamb: "You look to me like an MLIF."
De Greer: "I beg your pardon."
Lamb: "Milk in first."
This gave me a chuckle, as I remember reading George Orwell's essay, 'A Nice Cup of Tea' some years ago which explains his eleven rules for making tea. His tenth rule explains why the tea should be poured into the cup first and the milk added second. (included below)
"Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round" - George Orwell
"To back down from a principle was just baring your throat for the bite."
"There was no battle as fiercely fought as a girl's with her mother."
"As the PM's enforcer Sparrow wasn't as high profile as his predecessor had been, it would've been challenging to maintain that level of unpopularity without barbecuing an infant on live television."
At a team meeting, Jackson Lamb announces, "Today's the day the teddybear's having a picnic and I want to know who's invited" the attendees look bewildered and ask for clarification. Lamb responds with his renowned sarcasm, "Christ, I should use flashcards!"
Then, he explains, "The Russian Embassy, Russian bear, get it? The Russian Embassy's hosting a shindig this evening and I'd like Kung Foo panda here to provide a list of those turning up for caviar and chips."
Conversation between Catherine Standish and Charlie Whelan:
"Anything on the scale you're suggesting requires organization and resources. We have a fridge whose door won't close properly, does that sound like we fit the bill?"
Whelan responds, "It sounds like that's the way someone wants you to look."
Conversation between Jackson Lamb and Dr Sophie de Greer:
Lamb: "You look to me like an MLIF."
De Greer: "I beg your pardon."
Lamb: "Milk in first."
This gave me a chuckle, as I remember reading George Orwell's essay, 'A Nice Cup of Tea' some years ago which explains his eleven rules for making tea. His tenth rule explains why the tea should be poured into the cup first and the milk added second. (included below)
"Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round" - George Orwell
May 20, 2022
4 ☆
Listed in GR sequence, but not necessarily in chronological order:
#1 Slow Horses 4 ☆
#2 Dead Lions almost 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 ☆
I will post my review a few days after its publication in Mystery and Suspense Magazine.
Listed in GR sequence, but not necessarily in chronological order:
#1 Slow Horses 4 ☆
#2 Dead Lions almost 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 ☆
I will post my review a few days after its publication in Mystery and Suspense Magazine.
June 24, 2022
“… the role of the slow horses is to embrace unfulfillment and boredom, to look back in disappointment, stare round in dismay, and understand that life is not an audition, except for the parts that are, and those are the parts they’ve failed.”
Bad Actors is the eighth book in the Slough House/Jackson Lamb series by award-winning British author, Mick Herron. This audio version is narrated by Sean Barrett. Dr Sophie de Greer, hand-picked by the PM’s trusted right-hand man, Anthony Sparrow for an important role, is missing, and the word is that First Desk Di Taverner’s people at Regent’s Park are involved.
Chair of Limitations, Oliver Nash has been tasked by Sparrow with finding out, but he’s sure that Sparrow has an agenda. Semi-retired former First Desk, Claude Whelan is sent to look for her and, when he chats with Catherine Standish about it, he gets an idea of where she might be.
Days earlier though, milkman John Bachelor had spotted the young lady, and is sure she’s not quite whom she purports to be, something he shared with his friend, Lech Wicinski. So the slow horses, minus River Cartwright but ever eager for action, decide a bit of covert surveillance is in order.
Tightly plotted as always, and close-to-the-bone topical, this installment has the slow horses, and a few others, seeing plenty of action. Apart from guns, knives and fists, weapons brandished include a baseball bat, a hot chilli, a guide book, a table lamp, a spork, a head-lamp, an iron and a broom.
The Russian GRU’s First Desk makes an appearance, along with a gang of soccer hooligans, and a certain young man on the hub looks a likely candidate for Slough House after an encounter with Lady Di.
We can rely on Herron to unfailingly raise Lamb to new levels of obnoxiousness (yes, it is actually possible) while, outside of his IT prowess, Roddy Ho is no less deluded about his ability and appeal. The manifestation of the newly arrived Ashley Khan’s anger with Lamb almost backfires on her, but she does gets Ho a date, and Ho’s unlikely teamwork with Shirley Dander surprises them both.
Later, tucked away in an exclusive rehab facility to deal with her anger management issues, Shirley manages to engage in even more violence than usual, and finds an unexpected rapport with Claude Whelan.
The dialogue is always a source of humour and one might wonder if there is a forum where readers can offer Herron increasingly objectionable insults for Lamb’s use.
His description of characters is original and inventive: Sparrow is “nasty, British and short” and “the weasel under the Cabinet table, teeth bared and dripping” while, of Diana Taverner, “Even Nash, technically one of Regent’s Park’s string-pullers, knew to tread carefully around Diana. String-pullers carry weight, but Diana carried scissors.”
Fans f the series always look forward to an outing with the slow horses, while a reread fills the reader with anticipatory glee at the prospect of so many delicious and darkly funny moments set within the clever plot. Due to the guaranteed but unpredictable laugh-out-loud nature of the story, a warning must be issued: best not read on public transport, if you have continence issues, or whilst eating/drinking. Mick Herron never disappoints.
Bad Actors is the eighth book in the Slough House/Jackson Lamb series by award-winning British author, Mick Herron. This audio version is narrated by Sean Barrett. Dr Sophie de Greer, hand-picked by the PM’s trusted right-hand man, Anthony Sparrow for an important role, is missing, and the word is that First Desk Di Taverner’s people at Regent’s Park are involved.
Chair of Limitations, Oliver Nash has been tasked by Sparrow with finding out, but he’s sure that Sparrow has an agenda. Semi-retired former First Desk, Claude Whelan is sent to look for her and, when he chats with Catherine Standish about it, he gets an idea of where she might be.
Days earlier though, milkman John Bachelor had spotted the young lady, and is sure she’s not quite whom she purports to be, something he shared with his friend, Lech Wicinski. So the slow horses, minus River Cartwright but ever eager for action, decide a bit of covert surveillance is in order.
Tightly plotted as always, and close-to-the-bone topical, this installment has the slow horses, and a few others, seeing plenty of action. Apart from guns, knives and fists, weapons brandished include a baseball bat, a hot chilli, a guide book, a table lamp, a spork, a head-lamp, an iron and a broom.
The Russian GRU’s First Desk makes an appearance, along with a gang of soccer hooligans, and a certain young man on the hub looks a likely candidate for Slough House after an encounter with Lady Di.
We can rely on Herron to unfailingly raise Lamb to new levels of obnoxiousness (yes, it is actually possible) while, outside of his IT prowess, Roddy Ho is no less deluded about his ability and appeal. The manifestation of the newly arrived Ashley Khan’s anger with Lamb almost backfires on her, but she does gets Ho a date, and Ho’s unlikely teamwork with Shirley Dander surprises them both.
Later, tucked away in an exclusive rehab facility to deal with her anger management issues, Shirley manages to engage in even more violence than usual, and finds an unexpected rapport with Claude Whelan.
The dialogue is always a source of humour and one might wonder if there is a forum where readers can offer Herron increasingly objectionable insults for Lamb’s use.
His description of characters is original and inventive: Sparrow is “nasty, British and short” and “the weasel under the Cabinet table, teeth bared and dripping” while, of Diana Taverner, “Even Nash, technically one of Regent’s Park’s string-pullers, knew to tread carefully around Diana. String-pullers carry weight, but Diana carried scissors.”
Fans f the series always look forward to an outing with the slow horses, while a reread fills the reader with anticipatory glee at the prospect of so many delicious and darkly funny moments set within the clever plot. Due to the guaranteed but unpredictable laugh-out-loud nature of the story, a warning must be issued: best not read on public transport, if you have continence issues, or whilst eating/drinking. Mick Herron never disappoints.
February 26, 2024
hm..... the worst in the series by a landslide and most of the issues had to do with River's absence. This is quintessentially a filler book and nothing more, just something to bridge an inevitable time jump to when River comes back.
I understand that Slough House was a tough act to follow, but there was just something too off about the entirety of this other than the weak plot. Most of the cast felt ooc and newer characters like Lech and Ashley felt more like caricatures, something wholly different to the way Herron's introduced us to new slow horses in the past. Everything felt uninspired. Even the writing style was off with the familiar and distinct cold opening, Parts I and II being replaced by some hybrid muck reminiscent of a nonlinear The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode.
Herron is at his worst when he makes his books too much of a satire, he fell into the trap with London Rules and this installment is London Rules on steroids ;^; I've yet to read the novellas, but I felt for a majority of this as if I was missing something, some chapters, some scenes, something to provide context. If the novellas prove themselves to be required reading from this point onward... well idk if I'm strong enough. Have you ever considered that, Mick??? ;;^;;
I understand that Slough House was a tough act to follow, but there was just something too off about the entirety of this other than the weak plot. Most of the cast felt ooc and newer characters like Lech and Ashley felt more like caricatures, something wholly different to the way Herron's introduced us to new slow horses in the past. Everything felt uninspired. Even the writing style was off with the familiar and distinct cold opening, Parts I and II being replaced by some hybrid muck reminiscent of a nonlinear The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode.
Herron is at his worst when he makes his books too much of a satire, he fell into the trap with London Rules and this installment is London Rules on steroids ;^; I've yet to read the novellas, but I felt for a majority of this as if I was missing something, some chapters, some scenes, something to provide context. If the novellas prove themselves to be required reading from this point onward... well idk if I'm strong enough. Have you ever considered that, Mick??? ;;^;;
July 7, 2022
I'm not sure if this is the best of the series, or I'm just getting to know what's going on better, but I couldn't stop reading. Not only was the story interesting, but the humor was great. Jackson Lamb is as crass and insulting as ever, but it's hard to get upset because he treats everyone the same way. Also, he's the one that seems to always know what's going on and what's going to happen next. Diana Taverner seems to be the only other person who can somewhat keep up with him. When the two of them cooperate, which isn't often, I think they could do just about anything.
Shirley Dander played a big role in this one, and she was a riot. Who else would attack a bus with an iron? And when she became a target for some bad guys, I knew we were in for a wild ride.
I almost want to read this one again right now, but I plan to start at the beginning of the series and read them all, soon I hope. I know I missed a lot in the first few, especially since I listened to them as audiobooks that got hard to follow occasionally. Next time, I'll read the ebooks so I can easily stop and search for things.
Shirley Dander played a big role in this one, and she was a riot. Who else would attack a bus with an iron? And when she became a target for some bad guys, I knew we were in for a wild ride.
I almost want to read this one again right now, but I plan to start at the beginning of the series and read them all, soon I hope. I know I missed a lot in the first few, especially since I listened to them as audiobooks that got hard to follow occasionally. Next time, I'll read the ebooks so I can easily stop and search for things.
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