Bad Actors (Slough House)

"… the role of the slow horses is to embrace unfulfillment and boredom, to look back in disappointment, stare round in dismay, and understand that life is not an audition, except for the parts that are, and those are the parts they've failed."

Bad Actors is the eighth book in the Slough House/Jackson Lamb series by award-winning British author, Mick Herron. Dr Sophie de Greer, hand-picked by the PM's trusted right-hand man, Anthony Sparrow for an important role, is missing, and the word is that First Desk Di Taverner's people at Regent's Park are involved.

Chair of Limitations, Oliver Nash has been tasked by Sparrow with finding out, but he's sure that Sparrow has an agenda. Semi-retired former First Desk, Claude Whelan is sent to look for her and, when he chats with Catherine Standish about it, he gets an idea of where she might be.

Days earlier though, milkman John Bachelor had spotted the young lady, and is sure she's not quite whom she purports to be, something he shared with his friend, Lech Wicinski. So the slow horses, minus River Cartwright but ever eager for action, decide a bit of covert surveillance is in order.

Tightly plotted as always, and close-to-the-bone topical, this installment has the slow horses, and a few others, seeing plenty of action. Apart from guns, knives and fists, weapons brandished include a baseball bat, a hot chilli, a guide book, a table lamp, a spork, a head-lamp, an iron and a broom.

The Russian GRU's First Desk makes an appearance, along with a gang of soccer hooligans, and a certain young man on the hub looks a likely candidate for Slough House after an encounter with Lady Di.

We can rely on Herron to unfailingly raise Lamb to new levels of obnoxiousness (yes, it is actually possible) while, outside of his IT prowess, Roddy Ho is no less deluded about his ability and appeal. The manifestation of the newly arrived Ashley Khan's anger with Lamb almost backfires on her, but she does gets Ho a date, and Ho's unlikely teamwork with Shirley Dander surprises them both.

Later, tucked away in an exclusive rehab facility to deal with her anger management issues, Shirley manages to engage in even more violence than usual, and finds an unexpected rapport with Claude Whelan.

The dialogue is always a source of humour and one might wonder if there is a forum where readers can offer Herron increasingly objectionable insults for Lamb's use.

His description of characters is original and inventive: Sparrow is "nasty, British and short" and "the weasel under the Cabinet table, teeth bared and dripping" while, of Diana Taverner, "Even Nash, technically one of Regent's Park's string-pullers, knew to tread carefully around Diana. String-pullers carry weight, but Diana carried scissors."

Fans f the series always look forward to an outing with the slow horses, while a reread fills the reader with anticipatory glee at the prospect of so many delicious and darkly funny moments set within the clever plot. Due to the guaranteed but unpredictable laugh-out-loud nature of the story, a warning must be issued: best not read on public transport, if you have continence issues, or whilst eating/drinking. Mick Herron never disappoints.