Slough House is the 2021 book in the Slough House series of books by Mick Herron.
That’s a bit confusing.
The latest instalment again features the drunken flatulent Cold War burn out Lamb leading a motley crew of secret service failures from their shabby base near the Barbican – the Slough House of the title – and begins with a brief and brutal assassination abroad before the offended foreign power comes looking for revenge. …
Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate the death of two student nurses at the hospital nursing school of Nightingale House. …
It follows U.S. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke as he unravels the mystery surrounding his unanticipated arrival in the small town of Wayward Pines, Idaho, following a devastating car accident. …
The residents of this picturesque town don’t know how they got there and are forbidden to talk about their prior lives. An electric fence surrounds the town, and the residents are under 24-hour surveillance. The mysteries and horrors of the town build until Ethan discovers its secret. Then he must do his part to keep Wayward Pines protected from threats both within and beyond the fence.
The series covers themes of isolation, bucolic Americana, time-displacement, man vs nature, human evolution, and cryonics. …
London Rules is 6th in the Slough House series — 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. If they can’t be fired for any reason, they are reassigned to work under Jackson Lamb.
Herron is a very funny writer. Most of the best lines are from Lamb who’s a bigoted, philistine, obese, spectacularly flatulent, alcoholic chain-smoker.
But smart. And loyal to his misfits.
Oscar-winning actor Gary Oldman plays Lamb in the TV series.
In this book — the weakest in the series, so far — the head of MI5 is trying to protect the prime minister.
Politicians are corrupt and much mocked.
Over at Slough House, somebody wants to kill their tech geek, Roddy Ho. Nobody can imagine why.
The new book is also set specifically after the EU referendum.
Its antagonist, Dennis Gimball, is the UK’s leading Eurosceptic MP, with a wife who writes a tabloid column.
As in earlier books, which featured a floppy-fringed bicycling Westminster populist, Herron adeptly negotiates the rules of satire and the laws of libel to create fictional public figures who simultaneously hit more than one real-life bullseye.
During a series of terrorist attacks on Britain, Slough House detects a threat to Gimball, making the reader wonder whether the espionage rejects are capable of saving the politician and, frankly, whether we want them to. …
Spook Street (2017) is the 5th book in the Slough House series — and the best so far.
Herron is an entertaining writer. Most of the best lines are from boss Jackson Lamb who’s a bigoted, philistine, obese, spectacularly flatulent, alcoholic chain-smoker.
Oscar-winning actor Gary Oldman plays Lamb in the TV series.
What happens when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for those who know too many secrets but don’t remember they’re secret? Or does someone take care of the senile spy for good?
These are the paranoid concerns of David Cartwright, a Cold War–era operative and one-time head of MI5 who is sliding into dementia, and questions his grandson, River, must figure out answers to now that the spy who raised him has started to forget to wear pants. But River, himself an agent at Slough House, MI5’s outpost for disgraced spies, has other things to worry about. A bomb has detonated in the middle of a busy shopping center and killed forty innocent civilians. The “slow horses” of Slough House must figure out who is behind this act of terror before the situation escalates.
When Ted Lasso first emerged as a sleeper hit in the summer of 2020, it was the gentle hug audiences needed in the middle of pandemic lockdown, a familiar fish-out-of-water tale about a nice man infecting the cynical world around him with his niceness. …
Death at La Fenice (1992), the first novel by American academic and crime-writer Donna Leon, started the internationally best-selling Commissario Brunetti mystery series, set in Venice, Italy.
I read it while in Tuscany.
Slow paced. Brunetti flawed. I’m enjoying the books. Five, so far. And I’ll read more.
Death at La Fenice (1992)
Death in a Strange Country (1993)
The Anonymous Venetian / Dressed for Death (1994)
Venetian Reckoning / Death and Judgment (1995)
Acqua Alta / Death in High Water (1996)
A world-famous German opera conductor has died at La Fenice, and Commissario (Detective) Guido Brunetti pursues what appears to be a murder investigation without leads.
The series follows the relationship between Marianne Sheridan (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal), as they navigate adulthood from their final days in secondary school to their undergraduate years in Trinity College. …
Critics praise the subtle performances, directing, writing, aesthetics, and portrayal of mature content.
After all that rah rah … I must admit I only made it through the first 6 episodes. I got to depressed with how Marianne lets her life be ruined. And that Connell lets her.
Rick McCharles 