Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Great book, one of the better ones in this series. Good twist two-thirds of the way through, that made me happy.

Just want to keep reading more and more about this motley crew.

Mick Heron’s Slough House series is original and funny. I’ve read them all and am only disappointed that I didn’t get to option them for television but am looking forward to seeing Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb in the near future.

How on earth does Mick Herron avoid legal action from Peter Judd’s obvious model!

Mick Herron’s sixth outing of his Slough House series continues the dark, page turning, filmic, jump cut stories of dirty spydom, brilliantly piling nail biting cliff-hanger upon nail biting cliff hanger.

The gargantuan shambolic figure of Jackson Lamb himself, like a huge, monstrous web weaving spider is less centre stage in this one. Which I think was a good thing, as some of the Jackson Lamb gross jokes did wear a little thin this time – far too many farts! – I did think some of the schoolboy humour of Lamb’s unregenerate unwokeness and physical disgustingness needs to be less often stated, though I appreciate that if there are readers coming to this series midstream (so to speak) the funny fartingness may work better to provoke horrified amusement

Faithful readers will know, and expect that new damaged slow horses and their associates will be met, and old ones, whom we have come to care about, will face ups, downs and many dangers, and not all will remain this side of the grave.

The major joes in the field on this outing are River Cartwright, bleakly dealing with his grandfather’s recent passing, Louisa Guy, still scarred by the death of Min Harper, Shirley Dander, anger still unmanaged, and severely traumatised J.K.Coe. The rivalry between Park’s Lady Di Taverner, now hen of the walk, brooking no rivals to her power base, and Lamb, also continues.

Peter Judd (oh so very very closely modelled on Boris Johnson) is also, very much centre stage. In fact, Judd’s involvement in matters astonishingly shady indeed made me wonder how on earth Herron, and his publishers, avoid writs!

This one is set as the previous prime minister (Theresa May) is struggling with bringing Brexit to the table, and Judd/Johnson is clearly machinating to rise again once May has been toppled. He is scenting his route back to power, but has been involved in a blokey boys’ escapade of quite considerable darkness. Again, there are certain allusions which cut very close indeed to some extremely high ranking individuals, which are not a million miles away from ‘in real’ shenanigans still in the public eye, and under some kind of investigation.

More cannot be said, as watching how close Herron manages to sail to real events whilst positing even darker imaginary ones is part of the pleasure and gobsmack!

Place and season are deepest darkest Wales, depths of winter. Much snow and various bad actors and dangerous mercenaries bent on deadly missions are intent on more than snowball fights with the joes in the countryside…thrills, spills, deep sorrow, humour, fine writing and a tortuous , gripping twisty turny plot leave the reader on ‘just one more page’ over and over

A very clever book. The 6th in the series and this one certainly does not disappoint. If you like Spy-series then this is for you. Recommended.

Having enjoyed previous novels by this author I wanted to love this book but I found it added little to the series. The writing is pacy as usual and the characters are hardly likable but the overall feel was the same and will no doubt appeal to series fans. I found it readable but with little excitement. its possible I am just too well versed in these stories now to find anything new in them. I didn't love it, didn't hate it. it was fair to middling as they say around here.

Love Mick Herron's books and this one is yet another superb story. Jackson Lamb is heading to the screen soon apparently - can't wait for that too, but in the meantime I'll read as many of the Slough House books as he can churn out. Worth going back to the start of the series if you missed it first time round.

I have not yet reviewed this professionally, but I must say that this is a collision between a good, albeit unplausable story, to a jumble of too many characters..
I will be keen to read Mick Herron again, although I cannot find this story too relaible.
I will update the link to the review once it's posted

thanks!

I am fully hooked on Mick Herron's books. I have followed this series from the start and as they have continued I have enjoyed them more and more. Each book is stand alone - as is this one. However, I think the reader gets so much more out of the books from having read them in order. This, like the others is an excellent story, well written, well developed and well though out. The ending does not disappoint. The familiarity of the characters adds to the pleasure. I cannot, however recommend too highly that you start the story from the very beginning, you won't be disappointed.

Finished Joe Country by Mick Herron. A brilliantly brutal offering by the great crime author which has me now begging for the next one. Herron can do no wrong at this stage.

I've been looking forward to reading the latest instalment of the Slow Horse series and I'm happy to say that it didn't disappoint. As always Mick Herron's brilliant writing enveloped me into the storyline quickly and I couldn't wait to finish it. We have some of the same Slow Horses in this and we also meet some new ones. I love the way the characters develop, and whilst there are references to the previous books, you don't need to have read them to understand what's going on, but I'd definitely recommend going back and reading them after this one. Fast paced and gripping as always, I cannot wait to see what happens next.

This is the sixth instalment in Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series and there are absolutely no signs of letting off - it is just as outstanding as the rest of the series, if not more so.
Beautifully written, entirely original, with a lot of wry humour and a good splash of sarcasm, nevertheless full of heart, Herron’s writing is part poetry, part clever observation, tightly crafted plotting, and hard-hitting well-researched spy thriller. He makes me laugh out loud and well up on the same page.
The band of misfit characters and their setting have depth and colour and authenticity rarely encountered within the genre. But they are also flawed. My heart broke a little with this one.
Mick Herron is without doubt one of the best (not just thriller) writers out there at the moment and this series is like nothing else. Simply wonderful!

5★
“‘Oh, we’re on the side of the angels, Oliver. You just have to remember that angels do God’s dirty work.’”

Joe Country. (Spook Country) Where Jackson Lamb’s joes are, doing the dirty work. They are the Slow Horses of Slough House, the downwardly mobile from Regent’s Park

“which was not, as the crow flies, a huge distance from Slough House, but by any other metaphor was a lifetime away. The Park was the Service’s headquarters; it was where baby spooks learned their ABCs, and where flyaway spooks returned, once their missions were complete. It was where you didn’t get to visit if you’d been exiled to Slough House. Once that had happened, it might as well be Oz: ruby slippers not included.”

I love this series. (This is the sixth.) We have some of the same Slow Horses (you win some, you lose some), and the author is very good at referring to the previous stories without actually giving any plot points away. So if you choose to read this one first, it won’t actually spoil an earlier book if you want to go back and read them (which I recommend!) So on to this latest.

His joes may be temperamental misfits or irritating cokeheads, but they are his joes, and when someone staged a bloody attack inside the stained and mouldering walls of Slough House not long ago, Jackson Lamb is out for their blood in return.

“Lamb had enjoyed all sorts of reputations, each of them circling one fixed point: you didn’t f**k with his joes.”

Lamb is the most slovenly, socially reprehensible, personally disgusting human being I’ve run across for a while. He’s also the smartest person in the room and not someone you’d want to cross. Herron delights in painting Lamb’s portrait from every possible angle, including with his smelly feet in holey socks up on the desk with his backside positioned towards his gathered crew as he lines up to let one rip. THAT kind of disgusting.

And you can’t avoid him. If you’ve been relegated to Slough House, in the hopes that you’ll resign so they don’t have to sack you and explain why (which Regent’s Park can’t explain, because it’s all classified, after all), then you might as well stick it out – it’s a paying job. As someone said:

“But this was Slough House, where Jackson Lamb made the rules, and provided you didn’t hide his lunch or steal his whisky, you could get away with murder. There’d been at least four corpses within these walls she knew of, and she didn’t work weekends.”

The Slow Horses are supposed to be just counting traffic tickets, and comparing electricity bills with the number of residents, and idle make-work projects like that, pretending to look for odd safe houses. But every now and then, Herron finds an excuse to cut Lamb and his joes loose and send them out into the countryside, and it’s always mayhem. Fascinating, clever (often foggy, cold, and wet, or in this case, freezing and snow-packed) and bloody mayhem.

This is the Cold War hotted up. Bad guys get into the UK and start hunting people. Lamb’s people. And one of them is responsible for slaughtering his joes before and right at home, too.

I’m fond of the characters. I was pleased to see more of River Cartwright again. He was the main character who introduced the series, and he’s a main thread that holds it together, but he’s certainly not alone.

Jackson Lamb’s right hand is Catherine, the ‘reformed’ alcoholic, who is still living every day looking forward to the special bottle of wine she’s going to buy at the bottle shop on the way home. Rodney Ho, the RodMan, the self-proclaimed digital magician has a running monologue in his head that is always entertaining. (To be fair, he IS pretty good at tracking stuff down.)

“The Rodster, on the other hand; give the Rodster anything with a monitor and a keyboard, he’d be watching rough cuts of the next Star Wars movie before you’d opened the popcorn.”

Then there's Shirley, ah yes, Shirley.

“Shirley had attended court-mandated anger management sessions not long back, and the sessions had been successful in the sense that she didn’t have to go to them any more, but unsuccessful in the sense that she’d punched someone in a nightclub earlier in the week. . .

her anorak’s skin was plucked and pitted from a recent encounter outside a nightclub, when a stuccoed wall had been used as a vertical mattress . . .”

Slough House is a character in itself, smothering the crew with its clammy dinginess, and Herron describes it so well that I tend to cringe from the smell and the rot.

“The threadbare carpets, worn in patches, revealed a floor which did not inspire confidence, and the walls bulged inwards in places, as if planning to obliterate all they contained. Paintwork blurred into various stains daubed in accident or anger – coffee splashes, curry sauces – and corners were black with mould. Even the air: even the air felt like it had come in here to hide. No, this was as bad as things got. A flamethrower would only improve matters.”

Herron has struck the perfect chord with his mix of spooks and politics and murder and intrigue and humour (black, non-PC, and downright chuckle-worthy). And to top it off, his descriptive passages alone are worth the price of admission.

“And now the building subsides, the effect of shadows cast by a passing bus. Memories stir, the residue of long brooding – the stains people leave on the spaces they’ve occupied – but these will be gone by morning, leaving in their place the usual vacancies, into which new sorrows and frustrations will be poured. Soon winter will shake its big stick again, not only at London but at everything in its path, and great swathes of the country will be swallowed by snow. By the time it melts, Slough House will have new ghosts. Until then, it will do its best to forget those it already has.”

Love it, love them all, and they just keep getting better. Thanks to NetGalley and John Murray Press for the preview copy.

#JoeCountry #NetGalley

Well, if - like me - you thought Mick Herron’s series on the adventures of MI5’s rejects led by the happily inimitable Jackson Lamb, couldn’t get any better you will be in for a pleasant surprise when reading Joe Country. Whilst all the usual features are present, with the black humour that is something of a Mick Herron trademark, he manages to weave a whole range of contemporary references into the narrative in a way that is wholly natural. It will be interesting to see if these stand the test of time, but I expect that the author confidently believes the (mis)management of the Brexit by all parties - government, opposition, parliament, advisers and the key EU players - to remain in the public consciousness long enough for these references to be relevant and capable of provoking a wry smile for many years to come.

Mick Herron’s use of descriptive narrative and the ability to weave together the many strands of a complex plot that does not leave the reader forever having to retrace her/his reading steps to untangle the meaning are peerless. The fact that he can infuse what could be dark and sinister passages with his unique style of dark humour - often spoken by Jackson Lamb - often raises the enjoyment level from good to outstanding.

The plot is straightforward enough: the misfits operating under Lamb’s ‘unusual’ management style find themselves unexpectedly involved in a ‘wet’ operation in deepest rural Wales. In the ensuing mayhem blood is spilled and Jackson Lamb is driven to extract his particular savage and creative revenge on a range of bad actors - not the least of which is - as ever - the head of MI5. Herron, as usual, provides a pleasing range of sub-plots that enliven the action and for the most part find their resolution in the eventual denouement. Very highly recommended.

This great read continues the Jackson Lamb/Slough House/Slow Horses series, however this book gets straight into the story rather than the “round the houses” approach of others in this super series. The story revolves around a missing teenager who just happens to be the son of a recent past / dead former slow horse team member. An apparently ageing Jackson Lamb, who is showing signs of the result of his total disregard to his health, having abused his body through copious amounts of booze and fags, gets River, Rodney Ho and Louise onto the case set in cold and snowy remote Wales. The involvement of the “Park” and various other older spies and mercenaries keeps the action continually on the boil. Who lives and who dies waits to a great finale and denouement.

Is this book the end of the series...we shall just have to wait and see.

Thoroughly recommended

I enjoyed the previous book about Slough House but this one seemed very dreary. Nothing much was happening and seemed to mainly be about various personalities. I didn't become engaged at all..

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the arc, which I have enjoyed reading.
Although this is number 6 in the Jackson Lamb thriller series, I have not read any of the previous books, which was a disadvantage in trying to follow the storyline. However the book is very political and highly topical and a must for those trying to follow today’s politics. I think it would have been advantageous to have read the previous novels.
Recommended.

Brilliant - another excellent tale from the master of the slow horses.
Reading this series of novels has been one of the greatest of pleasures, thank you NetGalley for the opportunity.
A spy thriller with a twist - this being that all our main characters are the dumped and dumped upon rejects of MI5, whether through fault of their own or for political expediency, sent to Slough House to die a slow death of boredom by a service that can't fire them, but doesn't want them.
Luckily for us, they are thrown into regular adventures, where they can prove their worth, even though nobody is looking and nobody cares.
Quite brilliantly written, with characters filled with human flaws - which make their courage and sacrifice all the more poignant - it's a page turner that will have you reading deep into the night.

Another five star outing from Mick Heron and the folk at Slough House. For the full review go to https://joebloggshere.tumblr.com/post/187279278261/joe-country-by-mick-herron-this-is-the-sixth

The sixth in the Slough House series following a group of modern day hapless spooks. Plenty of dark and dry wit, with great action scenes. Cleverly plotted but will need to have read previous books to fully appreciate.