The Twenty-Ninth Book of 2026: London Rules, by Mick Herron
Started 9/8/26 Finished 9/9/26
If you look at the start and finish dates above, you'll see I went through this quickly (and then sat on this review for a few days). I noticed this trend the first time I read through all the Slow Horses books...they get better, and I find them harder to put down. I rarely stay up past bedtime to finish a story, but for this one I did. Fortunately I don't have to get up early in the morning anymore.
Roddy Ho, Slough House's resident computer whiz, is different from the other slow horses. First, there's no apparent reason for him to be there. Unlike the others, he there's no event in his past that resulted in his relegation to Slough House. Plus, he's genuinely good at what he does, which is anything to do with computer systems.
There's reason to believe he was assigned to Slough House simply because he's impossible to get along with. He's conceited, narcissistic, and has no empathy. He has a completely unrealistic view of how others see him and of his place in the world. In some ways, author Mick Herron writes Ho's interior life more completely than anyone else, and I think he has more fun doing it.
This story revolves around Roddy falling into a honeytrap -- a cute girl is pretending to like him and tricking him into using his hacking skills first to steal money and, eventually, state secrets. Ho spends most of the novel in one of the lower dungeons of Regents Park, the headquarters of MI5, unable to comprehend the trouble he's in.
As usual, this aspect of the story is tied to Roddy's dillema. The rest of the slow horses are going off reservation (as usual) trying to figure out the connections between a series of terrorist attacks in England, including a pipe bomb exploding in a zoo's penguin tank (I know, eww, but it's arguably not as bad as being in the same room as Slough House's chief, Jackson Lamb). Most of the bad guys (both inside and outside the government) end up dead or in custody, and the survivors remain at large or in charge of something or other. All the slow horses manage to survive this one, apparently even Roddy.
I must say something about author Mick Herron's ability to turn a phrase. More than once he made me laugh aloud. As an example, here's a bit from when the prime minister is thinking about keeping his position while navigating Brexit:
...only the lack of a strong contender within the party -- the most obvious candidates having been brought low by a frenzy of backstabbing, treachery and double-dealing on a scale not seen since the Spice Girls' reunion -- had allowed him to hang onto power this long.
London Rules brings us current with the Apple TV series so far. The upcoming sixth season, premiering September 16, will be based on books six and seven, Joe Country and Slough House. Since these two books will be combined into a single TV series, I intend to review them together. I may wait until the series is over in October, however. There are often substantial differences between the TV show and the books, and it might be interesting to compare them as the show goes along. At any rate, this will be my last Slow Horses review until sometime in October.
