London Rules by Mick Herron

A group of gunmen drive into a rural English village and go on a shooting spree. Various other terrorist outrages follow. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, the populist MP who led the Brexit charge is looking to usurp the Prime Minister, while a Muslim politician with the popular touch is looking to become Mayor of a major city in the West Midlands - but does he have something to hide?

This is the fifth in Herron’s  series of satirical spy thrillers based around the activities of the slow horses of Slough House. I’ve read all the previous novels int he series, though this is just the second I’ve reviewed. It can be read as a standalone, though reading the series is so much better. The novels centre around Slough House, a satellite station of MI5 where the Service’s misfits and disgraced members - so called Slow Horses - are sent to serve out their time until they retire or resign. Lording it all over them is Jackson Lamb, an overweight, flatulent bully of a man, albeit one who deep down cares for his underlings. The Slow Horses themselves are a selection of well-drawn characters, who the author imbues with individual character flaws and foibles. Each is loveable and repellent in his or her own way.

Once more, the Slow Horses are thrust into the centre of things, becoming embroiled in the various strands of the plot.  As with the previous books it’s all good fun, though once again the plot is rather weak. It’s something I’ve noticed about this series of novels, the plots are pretty forgettable. What makes the books enjoyable and well worth reading are the character’s antics and the fact that this is subtle satire; it’s not laugh out loud funny, but it makes the intelligence services and the whole war on terror seem slightly ridiculous. As with all the best satire this is subversive stuff and one can’t help but wonder how accurate it might be- after all, while most of what the intelligence services get up to is hidden from view, what little gets into the public domain isn’t always so complementary and the spies aren’t strangers to blunder.

4 out of 5 stars