Trying to keep up with my notes on books as I finish reading them. I’m alternating more literary fiction, generally with a SciFi, AI angle with the Slow Horses series by Mick Herron. Joe Country is the 6th book in the series. As of now, there are 8, the most recent published in 2022. The plan is to finish these and then try another series. The Gray Man series looks interesting and has been recommended by Warren Ellis, so I’ve got the first book in the queue.
The Slow Horses books can be a bit formulaic, where we’re all confused about what’s really going on until the action picks up in the second half of each book. With the Cold War over and terrorism an overused threat, Herron tends to make bad actors out of politicians, old spies and simple criminals, stirring them together in badly conceived plots. The Slow Horses, MI5 outcasts, always manage to solve the crime, but inelegantly in a way that never would permit their real redemption and return to the main game. Their boss, Jackson Lamb, is great literary creation- brought to life in the AppleTV series by Gary Oldman.