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.

This is the sixth book in the Slough House series.  Although each book is stand alone in terms of plot, it does help to be acquainted with the previous books, as some of the plot threads come together in this novel.  

The larger than life main character, Jackson Lamb, is the least likely spy master. He is a corpulent, chronically drunk, rude, foul, often cruel,  belching socially incorrect misfit.  But he can also be brilliant when he can be bothered and astute.  He is head of a motley crew based at Slough House, otherwise known as the Slow Horses, MI5’s least wanted, a bunch of washed up spies.  “this was the Service’s backwater, where they sent you when they wanted to bore you to death” –

Louisa Guy is one of the slow horses, Her work is a never-ending drudge made worse by the absence, through his death, of her colleague and lover Min Harper. When Min’s widow gets in touch asking Louisa to help locate her missing teenage son, Lucas, its partly guilt about their affair which gets her to take immediate leave from work and head into Wales searching for him.  
In parallel to this plot line - the appearance of a rogue ex-CIA operative at River Cartwright’s grandfather’s funeral also kicks the rest of the team into gear. Frank Harkness is a wanted man throughout Europe, but his hand in the death of one of the team previously makes it personal for Jackson Lamb. For if the malvolent, intemperate Lamb has one rule, it’s this: we look after our own.
Their search leads them eventually to Wales, and into the same snow storm that Louisa is stuck in as she searches for Lucas.  And so the plot thickens as these tangled webs play out.
Mick Herron’s  Sough House spy stories are amongst the best of this genre being written today. He is a brilliant writer, especially in his exploration and depiction of loss and connection.  This is not a typical spy thriller, there are moments of reflection mixed with dark, dark humour, very precise plotting and hilarious one-liners.  I look forward to reading the next instalment.

Another brilliant Slough House novel. Mick Herron has written a well crafted, clever, often humorous novel about the outcasts and misfits of British Intelligence. Another  slow horse joins, another of the well crafted characters gets killed off. A delight, from the opening scenes at the funeral of River Cartwright's grandfather the book twists and turns as different threads each slow horse is involved with comes together to an unexpected but satisfying conclusion. Definitely recommended.

There’s going to be a lot more mention of the white jacket, and of the wintry weather,  throughout this, the 6th of Mick Herron’s Slough House/Slow Horses/Jackson Lamb spy thrillers. 

All the regular characters, the joes of the title, are here – well, those who survived previous books. They are doing their normal boring jobs:
Shirley’s daylight hours were now taken up by cross-referring a register of TV licence defaulters against lists of those who’d failed to pay parking fines, child support and a million other minor offences. 
‘Wouldn’t it be quicker to just take the population of Liverpool and start from there?’
[As someone who was born and lived in Liverpool, I shouted with laughter at this.]

An early setpiece is the funeral of River Cartwright’s grandfather David, known as the OB. The action kicks off nicely from there.

Louisa starts looking for a missing teenager, for personal reasons, and her colleagues (including Emma Flyte from a previous book) are dragged in too, and most of them end up in an extended final section running and hiding and attacking people in a blizzard-hit rural part of Wales.

I couldn’t really tell what was going on in these snow-filled scenes, or picture where all the characters were in relation to each other (it was like the last act of Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro, only worse weather and harder to sort out.) But that was fine, I could just wait it out to see who ended up where, and enjoy the dialogue:
‘Wales, though. It’s not a huge place.’ 
‘It’s exactly the size it is, isn’t it?’ Shirley said. ‘Reports are always saying something’s “an area the size of Wales”. And that’s exactly the size Wales is.’ 
This was met with a short silence. 
Lamb said, ‘and to think I had you down as incapable of coherent thought.’


And the glancing political perceptions:
If you want your enemy to fail, give him something important to do. This strategy [was] known for obscure historical reasons as “The Boris”.
[The book is in fact full of political perceptions, perhaps even more so than the others in the series, with a lot of trailing of a future plotline.]

And this:
They were in a café off Fleet street, at Judd’s suggestion – he wanted somewhere with no danger of journalists being present. 
So if you know this series then you don’t need me to tell you to read this one. It is - of course, predictably – excellent. If you haven’t, start at the first book. Mick Herron is one of the best contemporary writers, and these are the best spy thrillers out there. 

One final diversion: River meets up with his mother Isobel, (‘there were times he could admire his mother’s self-absorption: it was a rare example of her showing total commitment’) at the funeral. Then we see them through the eyes of another key character:
Isobel had aged gracefully, presumably at the same speed as himself, though she’d taken care to slow down on the curves, or had some first-class mechanics hammering the dings out every other lap. As for River he was still young enough to take theknocks and stay standing or get back on his feet afterwards. A nice, trick, soon lost. River would learn. 
-which reminded me very much of the wonderful Frank O’Hara poem Animals: 



Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate 
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
it's no use worrying about Time 


but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners 
the whole pasture looked like our meal 
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days


-which featured on the blog when it gave its name to the book Animals by Emma Jane Unsworth, which has just been made into a film.