Mick herron he joined, back in 2010, a host of authors magnetized by the times of the Cold War. A time that resulted in a genre, that of espionage that always revolves around those diplomatic relations finally moved from much dirtier gears than the protocols and friendly handshakes of the leaders on duty.
They, the ones who still talk to us about spies today, are the Daniel Silva or Herron himself in his younger version to name two. But they are also the Forsyth o Le Carré with that baggage that reaches the real substrate for the scenography.
In Herron's case it is just one more creative side. Although it is precisely the one that has led it to its most international recognition. And it is that success is where one least expects it. And it is always interesting to launch into new challenges in search of that recognition for a trade that has already been carved out for years.
Thus comes to us a Herron of captivating and disturbing plots. That a genre revisits but to take new paths, with that wonderful adaptation of scenarios to new plot proposals and twists. Because when a seasoned writer like Herron arrives in a new space, it is to offer new focuses ...
Top 3 Recommended Mick Herron Novels
London rules
The fifth installment of the series jackson lamb 5 reaches an echo that extends to all shores of the espionage genre. Because this plot combines reality and fiction with a kind of chronicle cut combined with the proper framework of fiction. Just what we current conspiracy lovers (that is, everyone) enjoy the most to make sense of recent events.
MI5's new director, Claude Whelan, will have to learn the tricks of the trade the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he faces attacks from the petulant MP who orchestrated the Brexit referendum and his wife, who writes a tabloid column; of the prime minister's favorite politician; and, above all, his second-in-command, the ambitious Lady Di Taverner. In addition, the country is shaken by a series of seemingly random terrorist attacks.
At the Swamp House, its members deal with the suspicion that their new partner is a psychopath and that someone is trying to kill one of them. The situation is bad, but we can always count on the slow horses to make it much worse.
the street of spies
It seemed that espionage as a narrative genre was on its last legs. If anything, Daniel Silva tried to keep his cool while he reconverted to diplomatic suspensions or other duties. But the Mick Herron thing is of such magnitude that all the spies suddenly woke up... A fourth installment that raises the tension made in Herron to unbearable levels.
What happens when an old spy like David Cartwright loses his mind? Does anyone deal with those agents who hoard classified information, but do not remember what it is? These are some of the questions that his grandson River, a member of the team of Jackson Lamb and his "slow horses", the outlaws of the British secret service, wants to answer now that his grandfather, a Cold War myth and legendary MI5 figure He begins to forget things.
For a time, Jackson Lamb worked with the former agent and knows that this is not some helpless octogenarian, but the one responsible for many deaths by omission, sacrifice or direct liquidation. And it is Lamb who is called to identify the lifeless body discovered at David Cartwright's house, while a bomb has exploded in a shopping center and the slow horses of the House of the Swamp must act before everything gets worse.
Dead lions
The second part of the Jackson Lamb series has that point of consolidation and of throwing ourselves into the open grave, without prolegomena or introductions, to the heart of an issue. And the case itself has that strange and complex sweet, dark and nostalgic taste to the days of the Cold War, when the world seemed to go to bed at night with sinister uncertainties, like nuclear bombs held like swords of Damocles over the world.
Dead lions once again brings MI5 agents away from the corps, who unintentionally run into sleeper cells and famous Cold War spies.
The agents of the House of the Swamp, where the British intelligence commanders send the disgraced spies, are commissioned to protect a visiting Russian oligarch in the country that MI5 intends to enlist in its ranks. As two agents are sent on surveillance work, Dickie Bow, a former Cold War-era spy, is found dead in the back seats of a bus outside Oxford.
And although all indications point to a sudden heart attack, Jackson Lamb, the head of the House in the Swamp, is convinced that Dickie Bow has been murdered.
Because if you've been a spy, you are forever, and Dickie was an information veteran, whose work in Berlin in the lead years established him as an exceptional agent. Thus, when Jackson Lamb and his men, his "slow horses", begin to investigate, they uncover a dark tangle of Cold War secrets that seems to lead to Alexander Popov, an old Soviet legend or who knows if the most dangerous man of the world. How many more dead does it take to keep those secrets hidden?
Other recommended books by mick herron…
Slow horses
The beginning of a saga that has already lasted nine installments with its triumphant vitola of recovery of the spy genre. For the continued enjoyment of lovers of those cold wars that still keep the world on edge today.
The kingdom of the irreverent and sarcastic Jackson Lamb is in London and it is called Casa de la Ciénaga, a dump where members of the secret services who have made a mistake go, be it forgetting a document on a train, getting lost in a round of vigilance or becoming unreliable because of alcohol. They are called "slow horses" by their colleagues, they are the poor relations of British espionage and they all share the desire to get out of there at any cost and get back into action.
Of this flamboyant group of outlaws, the most disappointed is River Cartwright, who spends his day transcribing intercepted cell phone conversations.
However, when a young man is kidnapped and the perpetrators threaten to behead him live on the Internet, River sees in this act an opportunity to redeem himself. Is the victim who he appears to be? And what relationship do the kidnappers have with that disgraced journalist that the slow horses investigate? While the ticking that brings us closer to the deadline for the execution sounds, River discovers that each of those involved has hidden interests, and if the slow horses do not wake up, the echo of the crime will spread throughout the world.
Praised by The Mail on Sunday as "the most satisfying British spy novel in many years" and regarded by The Daily Telegraph as "one of the twenty best spy novels of all time," Slow horses is the first installment in the multi-award-winning series starring Jackson Lamb, a character who will leave his mark for his recklessness and sharp tongue.
Real tigers
Third installment of the Jackson Lamb Series. In our opinion, the one that pales in a certain way within the great potential that Herron's pen gives to his plots. In other hands it would be a great novel but in his case it seemed that we expected more…. Although in later installments it was far exceeded.
When a member of their group is kidnapped and held for ransom, the Bog House agents are forced to overcome all odds about their competition to circumvent the ironclad security measures of the MI5 central intelligence office and steal. valuable information as a bargaining chip to save his colleague.
However, this incident is just the tip of the iceberg of a large-scale conspiracy, in which not only a freelance gang is implicated, but also the highest echelons of the secret service. After years condemned to perform bureaucratic tasks, the slow horses find themselves in the middle of a plot that threatens to blow up the future of the House of the Bog and MI5 itself.
