The meta-data is 352 pages from Amazon, rated 4.5 by five litizens. It is not on GoodReads yet.
Genre: krimi
Verdict: Whoosh!
The denizen of Slough House are joined by a new Regent Park cast-off named Lech Wicinski, who had child pornography on his MI5 laptop. How dumb was that! So dumb that only a robot would suppose it true, and once supposed off Lech goes to the endless exile of Slough House, while his girlfriend (tipped off by an anonymous caller) goes ballistic and walks out. Just when it seems things cannot get worse he meets Jackson Lamb. Worse now has a name.
Of course Lamb does not believe anyone is that dumb but he does not care about injustice, as long as it leaves him alone. In another dumb move this injustice bumps into Lamb and he goes to work, as only he can. Though the beautiful Emma Flyte, briefly head dog at the Park, refuses reassignment to Slough House after falling afoul of the very malevolent Diana Taverner on the First Desk, she pitches in when Slough House denizen Louisa Guy (even more unstable than usual) sets off for Wales in deep winter, while Catherine Standish, sober for now, tries to corral Jackson Lamb with no success. Situation normal.
The meta-data does not lie. There are 352 pages but they flew by.
The office politics that Lady Di gets up to are straight out of McKinsey, and the absolute depravity of her political masters would make Pox News executives envious, the contract thugs loose in Wales are there to murder a child who saw something (though I was never quite sure what) and it is all in a day’s work for them. Bien sûr, Taverner was not so stupid as to believe Lech had pornography on his lap top but she exiled him faire encourager les autres. While whoever planted the material on his laptop may be a security threat, she is more interested in using the incident to terrorise subordinates into even more slavish obedience than fixing the leak. To fix it would mean revealing that the leak occurred on her watch. Lady Di does not admit to errors! With priorities like that is it any wonder she has risen to the top in the world where managers manage per McKinsey?
As usual there are thrills and spills with the Slow Horses from Slough House. Emma gets her pretty face shot off, Lech was not cut out to be a field agent and gets cut to pieces, Cartwright survives to keep feeling sorry for himself, Louisa likewise is surprised to be alive along with the intended victim, Catherine is even more tedious sober than when drunk, and Jackson Lamb could not care less as long as the world leaves him alone.
Meanwhile, back at Regent’s Park, Lady Di plans her next move up the greasy pole, enumerating the heads she will step on to get there. She is always sure the enemies are inside the tent, not outside. Meanwhile, the German plant in the Park who engineered the distracting pornography remains in place undetected. That plant may be a threat to national security but it is no threat to Lady Di – so all is good at the First Desk.