Book review - Real Tigers by Mick Herron. Third in an exciting espionage/thriller series, you may never have heard of

I came across Mick Herron last year when I read the first novel the Slough House series, Slow Horses.  I couldn’t understand why there wasn’t more of a buzz about Herron or the Slough House series.  With a bit more research I found that Herron was almost prolific, with a number of other novels and even short stories to his name.  Slow Horses was nominated for the CWA steel dagger and the second novel in the series, Dead Lions, won the CWA Gold Dagger award as well as a number of other awards for best crime novel of the year (Front Row), Crime and thriller book of the year (The Times) and one of the best 25 crime novels of the last five years (Sunday Times)

The series is set around a cast of characters who have been secret agents, but due to some error of judgement or weakness in character have been assigned to Slough House, a dumping ground for MI5 rejects.  They are all given mind numbingly dull work, hoping they will resign from the service, saving MI5 the trouble of dismissing them.

In this third novel, Real Tigers, one of the team Catherine Standish is kidnapped and her colleague River Cartwright is blackmailed into retrieving a secret document from Regents Park (Spook HQ) to secure her release.  In the labyrinthine world that the characters inhabit, nothing is quite so simple as it immediately seems, and as the story unfolds, you are introduced to a world of betrayal, bluff and double bluff that leaves you gasping every time a twist or turn happens.

I won’t go any further as it will spoil the surprise, or should I say surprises, for there are many in the book.  I simply loved love the writing style, particularly the narrator’s occasional asides that are wry, humorous and more than once make you giggle with their sharp, dry wit.  I will however say that in common with all the other Slough house novels it’s a genuine rollercoaster of a ride and best of all Heron has no qualms about body count and killing off established characters, so expect to squeal occasionally and gasp “No!!!” when a body turns up.  

Final verdict – a fab novel and a fab series, which I unhesitatingly recommend.   If you want to try Herron out, The List, is a Slough House novella which introduces you to the secret world of MI5s rejects for only £1.89 on Kindle.

Romancrimeblogger