Spook Street / Mick Herron.
Material type: TextSeries: The Slough House series | Herron, Mick. Slough House series ; Publisher: New York, NY : Soho Crime, [2017]Copyright date: ©2017Description: 310 pages ; 22 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781616956479
- 161695647X
- 823/.92 23
- PR6108.E77 S68 2017
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Bedford Public Library Fiction | Fiction | F HER | Available | 32500005400644 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
What happens when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for those who know too many secrets but don't remember they're secret? Or does someone take care of the senile spy for good?
These are the paranoid concerns of David Cartwright, a Cold War-era operative and one-time head of MI5 who is sliding into dementia, and questions his grandson, River, must figure out answers to now that the spy who raised him has started to forget to wear pants. But River, himself an agent at Slough House, MI5's outpost for disgraced spies, has other things to worry about. A bomb has detonated in the middle of a busy shopping center and killed forty innocent civilians. The "slow horses" of Slough House must figure out who is behind this act of terror before the situation escalates.
Originally published: London : John Murray, 2017.
"What happens when an old spook starts to lose his mind? Do the Services have a retirement home for people who know too many secrets but don't remember they're secrets? Or does someone come to take care of the senile spy for good? These are the questions River Cartwright must ask himself as his grandfather--David Cartwright, a Cold War-era operative--starts to forget to wear pants, and starts believing everyone in his life is someone sent by Services to watch him. However, River has other things to worry about. A bomb goes off in the middle of a flash mob performance in a busy shopping center and kills forty innocent civilians. The agents of Slough House have to figure out who is behind this act of terror before the situation escalates"-- Provided by publisher.
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
"Slow horses" (failed spies) are back in the spotlight with a whirlwind descent into the perils of dementia when a deteriorating old spook starts leaking some of his work stories to local tradesmen. Alarmed, his grandson, River Cartwright, consults an office mate. Both of them are members of the despised Slough House unit where agents with "issues" are condemned to slow death by boredom. But not today! The old spook is a linchpin in an American agent's project to create an elite force of provocateurs. An overzealous member of this force freelances a terrorist incident. To keep things quiet, the granddad has to be eliminated. -VERDICT In this fourth breathtaking installment (after Real Tigers) of this lively espionage series, Herron is never wrong-footed. Funny, biting, and devastating in his insights into the culture of espionage and antiterrorism, this supremely confident author devises characters and plots that in other hands would surely turn to mush.-Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
In Herron's terrific, and terrifically funny, fourth Slough House novel (after 2016's Real Tigers), London's intelligence teams are on full alert after a suicide bomber kills dozens in a mall. But at Slough House, the home of British spies put out to pasture, the immediate need is to investigate the possible murder of one of its own, River Cartwright, apparently shot while seeing to his grandfather David Cartwright, a former powerful member of the Service, now a paranoid old man. Those in charge quickly figure out the people responsible for the bombing but don't understand the motive. Meanwhile, the Slough House team, led by the despicable Jackson Lamb, tries to figure out who would go after River. The search leads to France and a recently torched commune, an odd ménage of Americans, Russians, and children. The two plot lines slowly converge amid a heady mixture of deadpan humor, deft characterizations, and acute insight ("A loose bullet rips a hole in normality"). The title refers to a suspicious state of mind: "When you lived on Spook Street you wrapped up tight: watched every word, guarded every secret." Agent: Juliet Burton, Juliet Burton Literary Agency (U.K.) (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Ella Nygaard's father was convicted of murdering her mother when Ella was seven years old, leaving her in a series of disastrous foster homes. Now a single mother rendered virtually unemployable by panic attacks that often land her in the psychiatric ward, Ella faces losing her son to the same system. Realizing that she has to confront her childhood nightmare, Ella kidnaps Alex from his foster home and takes him to the Danish coastal town where her mother was killed. She abandons years of determined refusal and agrees to live in her grandmother's empty home, painfully aware that her grandmother hopes to mine her memories for evidence of her father's innocence. Her grandmother will be disappointed; Ella has no memories of that night. But, as she slowly opens herself to Barbara, the town's alcoholic resident artist, and Thomas, her closest childhood friend, Ella finds that her mind is slowly releasing glimpses of her family's last night that don't fit the evidence given at her father's trial. Ella's parents' voices are threaded throughout, moving slowly toward the murder and introducing foreboding elements such as her mother's involvement in a darkly zealous religious group, hints of mental illness, and her father's infidelity. The skillfully calibrated atmospheric tension and Ella's realistically awkward struggle toward redemption will appeal to fans of literary suspense like that of Jennifer McMahon and Karin Fossum.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2017 BooklistAuthor notes provided by Syndetics
Mick Herron is a British author, born in Newcastle upon Tyne. He writes mystery and thriller novels and short stories. He is the author of Slow Horses, Dead Lions, Real Tigers, and Spook Street, in the Jackson Lamb series. His other works include Down Cemetery Road, Smoke & Whispers, The Last Voice You Hear, Why We Die, The List: A Novella, and Spook Street. He won the 2013 CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger for his novel, Dead Lions.(Bowker Author Biography)