Bad Actors - Mick Herron

You've got to hand it to Mick Herron. It can't be easy trying to satirise UK government when there have been three PMs in the position since the last book only a year ago. Another way of looking at it is that the Slough House author is spoiled for choice, but without making him a main player (or bad actor), he sticks with the one resembling the self-interested buffoon who "preferred the public to believe that his ineffectual blustering was a stage act', probably still the incumbent at the time of writing actually. You know, the one with a self-important dodgy SPAD enforcer and disruptor ("gnome-in-residence") running the show and doing his best to break down the established order of the service. He's up against some stiff if unwitting competition in Herron's world with the crew at Slough House.

One of the targets of the PM's Special Advisor Anthony Sparrow is someone with possibly more power and influence than himself, or perhaps he just likes exercising his own authority. In any case, he's not too fond of the First Chair, the head of MI5 at Regent's Park, but surely not to the extent that he would work with the Russian secret service to secure her removal? Well, it might not be too much of a stretch to imagine the current government using Russian influence if it helps line their own pockets and keeps them in power, so it's certainly a possibility here. What does seem true however, as First Chair Diana Taverner discovers at a function at the Russian Embassy with her opposite number, is that Sparrow has indeed been having secret meetings and may even have a Russian agent on his team. But to want end?

And where do Slough House come into this? As the dumping ground of Intelligence Service for the incompetent, the addicts and the failures, the goings on in No. 10 and the top of the service are a bit high level for the 'slow horses' to be involved. Their boss Jackson Lamb however has them monitoring the attendees at the function at the Russian Embassy, clearly suspecting that something smells off, and this time it's not just emanating from his own office or his person. Meanwhile, Dr Sophie de Greer, a Swiss superforecaster employed by the PM's Special Advisor has gone missing and former First Chair Peter Whelan has followed a trail leading back to Slough House. That's going to mean trouble, undoubtedly for everyone involved.

Bad Actors opens, as Slough House novels often do, with the surviving members of Slough House - those not in rehab, therapy, still missing or in a morgue - licking their wounds and rearranging the seating arrangements. Roddy Ho excepted of course, the resident computer geek and self-proclaimed if strangely under-exploited gift to women still comfortable in his own delusions, but he certainly has plans on the babes front with some important Zoom interviews pending. You don't want to know what Jackson Lamb might have been licking. There are also some repercussions to the last fiasco of Peter Judd's private secret service operation to take out a Russian agent on Russian soil, an event that Diana Tavener regrets and which still gives her sleepless nights. With Andrew Sparrow on her case and Slough House involved, her nights and days are going to get much worse...

It might be a slow opening that sets the scene, but even that is still hugely entertaining. Herron's writing is wonderful, refined to perfection with hilarious banter between the characters, filled with quick wit, humour and clever references. The early exchange between Lamb and Whelan is worth the price of the book alone, the Roddy/Shirley exchange is a bonus, but then anything to do with the RodMeister is always going to be cringe-inducing entertainment of the highest order. You could just float through on this kind of writing forever and never get tired, but Herron knows when to strike. When the call "Red Queen, Red Queen" comes though to Lady Di, Bad Actors flies into action mode and never lets up and you can be sure the slow horses are in for another bruising.

There are a few references to recent political and social upheavals, Herron not afraid to thrown COVID lockdowns and post-Brexit Britain problems into the mix, enough to place this within a relatively recent historical context. In some future readers might look back on this as an imaginatively humorous fictional exaggeration of how things were, but the truth is that it's probably an accurate enough depiction of the ambitions, delusions and disasters of the personalities involved, who are still around and behaving in a way as to make this still feel contemporary. With such material to work with, Bad Actors sees Herron not only still top of his game, but making far better use of the material available than any other novelist or satirist working in this field today. 

Reading notes: Bad Actors is the 8th Slough House novel by Mick Herron, published by Baskerville. I read the Kindle version. I've read and reviewed all the Slough House novels, and this one is up there with the best. I haven't seen the Slow Horses TV series, although word is it has been good and I'm glad that it's getting Mick Herron the attention he deserves. I can't see however how it would come anywhere near the brilliance of the books, and you would definitely lose Herron's awe-inspiring humour, turn of phase and mastery of pop-culture references. Although the author would  not like the title to be seen as a reference to the series, I have to say that personally, I think Gary Oldman is a dreadful (over-)actor, and I couldn't bear to see him hamming up Jackson Lamb, much as it might seem that Lamb is a gross caricature. I'll stick with the books, thanks very much. Keep them coming, please!