Joe Country: Slough House Thriller 6

Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE THEAKSTON OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER 'We're spies,' said Lamb. 'All kinds of outlandish shit goes on.' Like the ringing of a dead man's phone, or an unwelcome guest at a funeral . . . In Slough House memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process. And with winter taking its grip Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can't ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score. This time, they're heading into joe country. And they're not all coming home.

Mick Herron's six Slough House novels have been shortlisted for eight CWA Daggers, winning twice, and shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year three times. The first, Slow Horses, was picked as one of the best twenty spy novels of all time by the Daily Telegraph, while the most recent, Joe Country, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Mick Herron was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and now lives in Oxford.

Superb . . . Herron has a lively satirist's eye and a comic sensibility that, in full flow, evokes early Tom Sharpe - Irish Times Herron does not seek to be John le Carre - his is a wryer, more ironic style; faster, more down to earth, with rapid prose that grabs you by the throat. If you haven't read him yet, do so now - Daily Mail Joe Country is Herron's most complex but perhaps his most accomplished novel to date and should cement his status as the best thriller writer in Britain today - Daily Express This series is bitingly intelligent, light of touch and frequently hilarious - Observer Mick Herron is fast becoming the go-to author for British espionage, and the sixth novel in his Slough House series, Joe Country, is up to his usual high standard . . . Aficionados can expect Herron's trademark snappy dialogue, memorably flawed characters and sharp political observation - Guardian Herron is superior to the vast majority of thriller writers at their best, and there's no shortage here of reliable treats ranging from messy, inept gunfights to brutally sarcastic dialogue - Sunday Times Mick Herron's Slow Horses series, in which Jackson Lamb is the unorthodox spymaster overseeing a group of MI5 screw-ups, has long since taken its place near the pinnacle of modern crime fiction. Joe Country, the sixth book, is every bit as captivating as its predecessors. There is an enjoyable familiarity now to Lamb's eye-wateringly un-PC statements and his unorthodox but effective modus operandi, and also to Herron's Red Wedding-style willingness to knock off central characters with little warning. But the plots have never really been the point of these novels - instead, like a pin-sharp sitcom that happens to include murder and high politics, they purr along on the gracelessness and ineptitude of the self-deluding Slow Horses, the unmatchable Lamb, and the crackling writing that has made all six in the series unmissable - Big Issue Herron's novels are intelligent and thought provoking, he's an exceptional writer, truly inventive, full of verve and style, inventive and original. His writing sharp as a tack, there are no wasted words . . . Joe Country is a classy thriller, dark and mischievous and the cross fertilisation with the nasty real world adds bite. Herron is a master of the sleight of hand, of misleading the reader with red herrings, the reader's expectations are constantly confounded - NB Magazine