Stories about bumbling, defunct spies

Slough House series by Mick Herron

The secret agents of Slough House are anything but “secret” to their former colleagues of MI5. “There but for the grace of God go I,” might be the motto of this cadre of screw-ups, fumblers and exiles.

They are led by the still-brilliant but hard-drinking and always unmanageable Jackson Lamb who rallies his team of miscreants to unearth moles, traitors and international villains. Lamb also has a long memory from which he extracts embarrassments from his MI5 bosses pasts, when he needs a longer leash for an operation.

Writer Mick Herron published the first Slough House novel in 2010, and seven books have followed, including a new novel to be published this year. If that sounds like too many to work your way through, my favorite is “London Rules, the fifth book in the series, where we get to know two of the women who work and suffer under Lamb’s leadership.

Or, if your reading list is simply too long to add another multi-book series to it, wait for the Apple TV show. What a cast! Gary Oldman is playing Lamb, Kristen Scott Thomas, Olivia Cooke and the wonderful Jonathan Pryce are also in the cast. Apple is promising 12 episodes!

My Thread Must-read OR must-see is Mick Herron’s “Slough Horse” series.

Next time? 2021 is the year of some excellent new books on climate change. I’ll bring you two that I’m most excited about.