Lamb to the slaughter

Jackson Lamb and his band of misfits and failed spies are back in the decrepit Slough House in London, where they have been dumped by Britain’s espionage service, MI5, for blotting their copybooks and in the hope they will become so bored they’ll leave the service of their own accord.

Fat chance! The Slow Horses, as they are called, are yet again drawn into nefarious espionage missions, ancient and new, in British author Mick Herron’s ninth Slow Horses novel, a series that spawned the popular Apple TV adaption of the same name.

Clown Town has the rejects discovering a horrendous coverup during The Troubles in Northern Ireland in which the spy service — Regent’s Park, or just the Park — paid an IRA informant codenamed Pitchfork and turned a blind eye as he raped and killed for his own purposes. If it becomes public, the Park will be under political and public scrutiny it does not want and the Service’s first desk, Diana Taverner, will do anything to prevent that happening.

The opening of the book describes Pitchfork’s go-to method of dispatching his enemies — crushing their heads under the wheel of a Land Rover — and if making that public won’t cause a political firestorm, nothing will.

It’s certainly enough to get Diana plotting the demise of those holding the proof of the Pitchfork case; however, she also faces the threat of being outed for an off-the-books assassination of a Russian agent that was funded by Chinese money. What’s a Machiavellian spy chief to do but plot a couple of cleanup assassinations?

But as Herron describes her as she seeks help from one of the Horses, “When Taverner invites you to trust her, count your spoons. And if you didn’t bring spoons, check she hasn’t planted one on you, to have you arrested for theft later.”

In a perfect world, a spy chief should be able to accomplish that goal without leaving a trace, and maintain her tight control on the espionage apparatus and the political overseers who think they really have a say in it.

But the Slow Horses world falls well short of perfect.

Herron sets up the Slow Horses’ general predicament for readers new to the series: “Slough House… is the lowest of the low: an administrative oubliette where the benighted moulder in misery. Their careers are behind them, though not all have admitted it: their triumphs are black laughter in the dark.”

Herron, a deft writer and a masterful wit, meshes the Pitchfork protagonists, the Russian assassination principals and the Slow Horses attempting to understand it all in a quick-paced style that keeps the reader alert and trying to follow the investigation as it unfolds in many directions.

The crew is drawn into this mess because of River Cartwright, the only Slow Horse whose Service career was ruined because he was sabotaged, and not because he screwed it up himself. River’s grandfather was a Service heavyweight, and a document box missing from his library reignites the Pitchfork saga.

There are the usual twists and turns — too many to make sense of in a book review — so suffice it to say one Horse is shot, another slashed with a knife, computer wizard Roddy Ho is as tone deaf to the real word as always, Shirley Dander throws another person through a window and Catherine Standish attempts to maintain some sort of equilibrium in the maelstrom.

And then there’s Jackson Lamb, a character who, on the surface, has no redeeming qualities as he drinks and smokes too much, stinks up the joint and berates his crew mercilessly, yet is an old-school operative who would do anything to protect his “joes.”

His bad habits, which include flatulence as a strategic manoeuvre, are legion. He is destined, however, to become one of the best-known protagonists in spy fiction, a genre with a history of such characters.

Most of the Slow Horses are there because they really are the half-arsed dimwits they’re known as, thanks to anger and substance issues, as well as the occasional disastrous mistake on the job.

Yet, they are all, if not actually charming, likable enough to root for. And, under Lamb’s leadership they do get some wins, if not recognition.

If you’re new to Slow Horses, by all means read Clown Town. But do yourself a favour and search out the earlier novels.

Chris Smith is a Winnipeg writer.