Dead Lions (2013) won the Crime Writers’ Association 2013 Gold Dagger award.

It’s #2 of Mick Herron‘s Slough House series, which have been adapted for the Slow Horses TV series.

I’d say the TV show is better than the book — but they are both good.

London’s Slough House is where the washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers.
The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated here. Maybe they messed up an op badly and can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. …

Now the slow horses have a chance at redemption.

An old Cold War-era spy is found dead on a bus outside Oxford, far from his usual haunts. The despicable, irascible Jackson Lamb is convinced Dickie Bow was murdered.

As the agents dig into their fallen comrade’s circumstances, they uncover a shadowy tangle of ancient Cold War secrets that seem to lead back to a man named Alexander Popov, who is either a Soviet bogeyman or the most dangerous man in the world.

How many more people will have to die to keep those secrets buried?

Good Reads

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