by Mick Herron

The 5th and so far last of the Oxford Investigations series, has no sign of the series protagonists. But what we have is the developing story of a man on the run, a traffic accident, that collides into a hostage situation at a day care center. But the man on the run, says he’s the lover of a missing agent (who works in the civil service accounting division) who had been in Iraq… Soon more agents, the Dogs – including their head “Bad Sam” Chapman, and the lives of the hostages in the daycare all intersect. But who is telling the truth? And who is lying? And where is the missing agent, and all of the money he supposedly stole?

Reading this first series, you can see the various bits and bobs that make the Slow Horse series of books excellent, really coalesce here. The unreliable narrator. The Dogs as antagonists. What we lack is a hero. Bad Sam is almost playing the Jackson Lamb part – older, grumpy, always at odds with his boss. Duffy is name checked here. Only the Oxford locale links it to the  Zoë and Sarah plotlines of the first four in the series.

288 Pages

4.25/5