Review: Joe Country (Slough House Book) by Mick Herron
If Spook Street is where spies live, Joe Country is where they go to die.
In Slough House, the London outpost for disgraced MI5 spies, memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him an outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.
Meanwhile, in Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner’s tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she’s going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil . . .
And with winter taking its grip, Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible for killing a slow horse breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.
I TRIED HARD TO AVOID BIG SPOILERS BUT IT IS BOOK SIX AND I MAY TALK ABOUT SOME THINGS IN A LITTLE BIT MORE DETAILS BEWARE.
Review:
Dear Mick Herron,
Here I am a person who hates character deaths in her reading (yes, yes, I know there are wars and old age, I am just saying in general) who nevertheless continues to torture myself with your books because they are so good. This is book six in the eight books series and first of all allow me to laugh a little at the blurb, because everything that is written in the blurb is at the same time a truth and a lot of misdirection.
Catherine Standish may be buying booze again, but it is what she is doing with it is what matters right? Louisa may be dealing with something that very much reminded her of Min, but no, she is not raking over his ashes and no, poor newbie in the House Lech Wicinski did not really committed any of the sins he was accused of.
So I found the blurb a little amusing to say the least.
Louisa in this book is trying to find a missing person and at first she is trying to do it on her own and even requests leave from Slough House, but of course later on other members of the team get involved too, because how could they not? I had to applaud River actually, he does call Jason Lamb and tell him where he is going. We do have some character growth as opposed to book three when he just rushed into a thing without calling anyone!
“And meanwhile Louisa was missing. And Louisa was his friend. Unless she was just on a jolly, and had lost her phone. “Flyte admitted it might not be an actual ditch,” he said. “I think she just wanted me to treat it like an emergency.”“Back at Slough House, he’d gone straight to Lamb’s room, the others in his wake. Lamb was at his desk, shoeless, his electric heater pumping out an exhausted warmth that filled the air with the smell of fried dust. “Louisa’s in Wales. I’m going after her.” “Did I wake up in a fucking romcom?” said Lamb. “I think she’s in danger.” “Because that would explain the snow,” continued Lamb. “And the lack of black faces.” He slid a hand inside his shirt. “Come to think of it, did I wake up in Wales?””Jason Lamb rocked this book too, but he always does. I mean we know that he cares about his team no matter how much he runs his mouth at them, so that was nothing new, but I was pleasantly surprised that he revealed a bit more of the personal information to Catherine. Did he try to show his vulnerability – I am afraid to ask in order to stop her from doing a stupid thing? Regardless, whatever the intention was I liked it.
“Ever go drinking with your old boss? Might have been a contest. He could put it away. Thirst like a fucking camel. Unless he was pouring it under the table.” She’d thought many things about Jackson Lamb, most of them bad. But it had never occurred to her he’d been a teenage girl. “So that’s it?” she said. “Charles Partner got you drunk, and you told him who Bogart was?”And of course he cannot stop himself from talking the way he always does and I appreciated that. But I also appreciated how more and more (and some of them are even realizing that) other members of his team are channeling him in their conversations at times.
“I suppose we should be grateful there’s not an emergency on. Like, you know, a homicidal spook on the loose.” “She probably decided it was Park business. And that Slough House had no reason getting involved.”I am going to say this, I loved how Louisa and Emma tried to work together. I think they had a lovely chemistry and Emma was a star, but I did think that it was a humongous coincidence how the person Louisa was looking for ended up front and center of being a problem for some Higher Ups. I also have to say that I understand that satire of British politicians is a big part of these books and some of it I even get, but I dislike them so much that I just try to get back to Slow Horses as fast as I can.Grade: B+AmazonBNKoboBook DepositoryGoogle
I need to do a complete re-read because I remember nothing related to specific books; basically it’s all blurred into one gigantic series. Your reviews take me back in a really nice way and I agree completely about the politicians.