Book Report: Dead Lions

5. Mick Herron, Dead Lions (2013) (4/16/25)

A couple of years ago I reported on the first book in this series of, now, nine about the "slow horses"—somehow disgraced members of MI5 who've been sent out to pasture, the useless work they're assigned to do meant to inspire them to just quit, saving HMG (Their Majesty's Government) paperwork and money. Only, they keep stumbling onto actual spy stuff that the Park, as HQ is known, manages to miss.

In this second installment, a long-forgotten informant is found dead on a bus, and Jackson Lamb, head slow horse, sniffs a link to Cold War carryings-on and a possible sleeper cell ensconced in a bucolic English village. Codeword "cicada," as in: coming to life only every seventeen years or so. 

It's impossible to summarize the book, nor would I want to try. The delight in reading it is partly in the structure: very short episodes, as little as half a page up to a few pages, each shifting perspective on the story—or stories, all of which add up to a rollicking good finish. Each protagonist, and the villains too, are cut out of whole cloth, with their various petty foibles and concerns and aches and pains and—in some cases, crucially—pasts. There is a lot of intelligence in how many of the slow horses behave—and some stupidity too, which in one instance leads to the character's demise. Or maybe he just had very bad luck?

The dénouement almost involves a plane flying into a skyscraper, and certainly includes a mass protest on the streets of London, and could have seen a huge explosion in the little English village. Diamonds play a role. And Russians, of course, though these days are long past the old spycraft of the 70s. Or are they?

I really enjoy Mick Herron's writing. He carries you along, gets you to laugh, gets you to care, gets you to root for these misfits to carry the day. 

I might just have to continue on a slow horses binge-fest. This volume actually had me reading again, without too much distraction. It's been a while. 

I did dog-ear one passage, though there are many, many I could have chosen. But here, just for a flavor of the language, the character interaction. It's a conversation between Catherine Standish, former drunk and very wise second to emotionally parsimonious Lamb, and Roddy Ho, a data nerd who has, for once, taken some initiative and found useful information:

"This is good, Roddy."
     "Yeah."
     And maybe she'd been hanging around Lamb too much, because she added: "Makes a change from just surfing the net."
     "Yeah, well." He looked away, colour rising. "All that archive crap, I could pull an all-nighter, get it finished in a sitting. This is different."
      She waited until his gaze met hers again. "Good point," she said. "Thanks." She glanced at her watch. It was nine. Louisa and Marcus would be on their way to pick up Arkady Pashkin, which reminded her: "Did you do the background on Pashkin?"
     And now his expression became the more familiar put-upon scowl. Spending a life among computers had a way of prolonging adolescence. There was probably a study on it. It was probably online. "Been kind of busy?"
     "Yes. But do it now."
     Shame to leave him on a sour note, but Roddy Ho had a way of sticking to his own script.

Yeah. I think I'll check and see if Real Tigers is at the library. I could stand more of this brand of storytelling, language craft, and... humanity.