Dead Lions by Mick Herron
Dead Lions is the second book in the Slough House spy series by Mick Herron. It is the sequel to Slow Horses.
The slow horses are Intelligence Service operatives who’ve all made mistakes and been sidelined to Slough House, working on mundane administrative tasks. They are led by Jackson Lamb, who drinks, smokes, eats too much and is generally disgusting.
In Dead Lions, a former spook and colleague of Lamb’s, Dickie Bow, is found dead on a rail replacement bus. On Bow’s phone, Lamb find a single word unsent message, which hints at a Russian operation being run under the Intelligence Service’s noses. The slow horses follow the trail of the train, the replacement bus and a taxi into an unassuming and quintessentially English Cotswold village. What secrets are the village and its inhabitants hiding?
Meanwhile, Spider Webb from the Service’s Regent’s Park headquarters recruits two slow horses to ‘babysit’ a visiting Russian businessman. If the meeting goes well, it could prove lucrative. But is the Russian really who he says he is? And can the slow horses trust Webb, who already got River Cartwright consigned to Slough House?
I really love this series and the style of writing, which seamlessly balances humour and intrigue. To me, Dead Lions is even better than Slow Horses. Can you read it as a standalone novel? I would say not! I made the mistake of starting with a book later in the series (Slough House) and can categorically say it doesn’t work. Start with Slow Horses and keep going. You won’t be disappointed.
(I’m aware that Slow Horses is also a series on Apple TV, starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb. Sadly we don’t have Apple TV, so I’ve never seen it!)
Having several tv services I was most disappointed to find it was on Apple, I’ll have to go old fashion and read the books instead, lol. I tend to enjoy the reading more, I think only one book was better adapted, A Man Called Ove, which was A Man Called Otto on tv, but it had a lot of nuances that I didn’t get from the book. And I’ve grown up with the legendary Tom Hanks (Otto)
It’s very disappointing that it’s on Apple! I think I might get it for a few months once I’ve read the series, because the TV show has had very good reviews.
I’ve never seen A Man Called Otto. I saw the original Man Called Ove film with subtitles. It was good, but not as good as the book.
The only TV show I’ve seen which was better than the book was Normal People.