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Jun 11, 2018D_Kyle rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
This first installment in the "Jackson Lamb" series has me hooked! Mick Herron's writing is intelligent, face-paced and liberally sprinkled with deadpan British humor and vocabulary; a comedic LeCarre. Scenes are descriptive and effectively transport the reader. The story moves quickly and weaves a number of simultaneous threads together that involve disgraced MI-5 agents who have been put out to pasture in dismal dead-end Slough (rhymes with "cow") House with mind-numbing tasks in the hopes they'll peel off. Jackson Lamb, Slough House's nominal leader is a shuffling, uncivil, washed-up shadow​, but proves he has a cool head when his agents get into deep water. Amongst the seemingly fruitless data they sift, they unwittingly uncover a covert op designed to put a foreign power in the Crown's debt, but without a Plan B in place it turns into a debacle when an agent is exposed. The team, all of which are held in contempt by agents and "achievers" at headquarters, have interesting quirks and backstory that are examined in light detail and help fill out the story nicely. I had brief intervals of re-reading when I realized the author had switched to a different thread of the story, but this should not deter you, because the voices of the characters make it obvious pretty quickly. Ultra fast read, augmented by a well-narrated audiobook version during my commute. Already started on the sequel, Dead Lions, a CWA Gold Dagger Award (2013).​