Dead Lions: Slough House Thriller 2

Reviews

George P. Wood

e. When Dickie Bow dies at the back of a bus, everyone assumes the old alcoholic shuffled off this mortal coil naturally.

It’s a five-star page-turner for me. And from whom? Personally, I thought Season 2 was better than Season 1, which was based on the first novel, Slow Horses.

It won a CWA Gold Dagger award for best crime novel. What’s he hiding? Bow used to be a “streetwalker” (i. Weirdly, however, MI5—as represented by the scheming James “Spider” Webb—has seconded two Slough House denizens, Louisa Guy and Min Harper, to run security for a meeting with a visiting Russian oligarch who has his sights on the Kremlin.

And he left a one-word message in the drafts folder of his cellphone: “cicadas,” a reference to rumored Soviet sleeper cells in England’s green and pleasant land. But the secondment is weird because (a) security is a job for the Dogs, not the Slow Horses, and (b) Webb hasn’t been forthright about this meeting with his boss, Diana Taverner. , personal surveillance) for MI5 in Berlin before the Wall came down, after all. Dead Lions is an excellent successor to Slow Horses.

Jackson Lamb isn’t so sure, however. As Lamb investigates Bow’s death, and as Guy and Harper draw closer to the date of Webb’s meeting with the oligarch, their separate plotlines begin to converge, leaving readers wondering who’s conning whom, and to what end. MI5 long ago dismissed the rumor, but Lamb thinks it’s worth looking into. Webb thinks the oligarch can be recruited as an agent of influence.

And if you’re interested, Apple TV adapted this novel for Season 2 of its Slow Horses series. Definitely recommended!