The misfits of MI5 are back. This time, a prominent political forecaster has gone missing, and the trail leads back to Diana Taverner, first desk at MI5. And somehow, the Slow Horses are involved too. Honestly, the plot is convoluted and doesn’t make a lot of sense. Fortunately, as is usually the case with this book series, you can mostly ignore it, and just enjoy the characters and the humor.
The humor in this book is pretty on point. There are some truly excellent zingers here. And that’s important, because, truly, I could barely follow the plot at all. The day after I finished the book, someone asked me what happened, I started to explain… And realized I couldn’t. I mean, I was able to relay the broad strokes, but all the fine nuances, if there were any, just didn’t come together for me.
It didn’t help that it has been 2 years since I read the previous book in this series, Slough House, which made even less sense to me. That previous book introduced some new characters, and got rid of some others, but I couldn’t recall the details, so I was a little lost at the start of this next book.
It’s a good thing Mick Herron is so good at writing characters, dialog, and humor. Because if it was only his exposition and narrative structure, I would’ve given this series up long ago. But put Jackson Lamb and some dumb, unwitting target (e.g., Roddy Ho) in a room, and I’ll keep reading and reading.
