Once upon a time, Bettany had gone undercover to put the McGarry Brothers in jail for their contribution to The Troubles. Although he had given his testimony behind a screen, there were many in the McGarry clan who would be quite pleased to get their hands on Bettany for betraying them. Only the death of his son was powerful enough motivation to return to the UK.

Books by Mick Herron (Author of Slow Horses) - Goodreads Books by Mick Herron (Author of Slow Horses) - Goodreads

Herron (Dead Lions, 2013, etc.) strips his revenge story to the bone, paring away unnecessary characters, episodes, speeches and gestures to produce a violent little elegy that grows both more clever and more sour as it hurtles along. Bettany) let Flea lead him upstairs, where the windows were untinted, and the view was of rooftops across the canal. What had once been factories were now flats, though retained the outward appearance of industry. But an industry tamed, its corners waxed and polished. It’s a bit grim, but a good read, and there are even a few passing references to some Slough House characters, which is fun for fans like me. This is a stand-alone with rewarding pre-quel links to the Slough House series. It’s just classic Herron. Bettany is a retired secret ops agent who worked for M15, Britain's secret service. Ingrid Tearney, the director of M15, knows that Bettany is in town and she has an agenda of her own. She sics a psychiatric newby on Bettany who gives him Marten Saars' name. Additionally, the gaming company that Liam worked for is run by a very eccentric man named Vincent Driscoll. Coe delivers the message that Ingrid wants Liam to keep his hands off of him. Bettany wonders why. In the meantime, he buys a gun.Nobody Walksis a very different kind of thriller: more Richard Stark than John Le Carre. It’s stripped downand raw; a satisfying, immersive thriller, bold and brutal in its simplicity.” Tearney] resembled the more benevolent kind of witch, the type to dish out helpful potions when love let you down. Starred Review. Herron's remarkable novel has enough suspense, action, and deductive dazzlement to keep genre fans happy. But be warned: these are deep waters, and this is not nodding-off, night-table reading." - Booklist He knew that, as much as anyone knew anything about the Cousins’ Circle, which was Russian based, multiethnic, multinational, and enjoyed the double charm of having its existence doubted as much as its reach was feared.

NOBODY WALKS | Kirkus Reviews NOBODY WALKS | Kirkus Reviews

If you like your suspense novels told with a smart dash of wit and sarcasm, filled with lots of twists and turns, Herron’s your man.” If you haven't read Nobody Walks and you love the Slough House books then make a point of reading it. Both Ingrid Tearney and JK Coe feature. JK Coes first appears in The List, and then in this, before finally appearing as one of the slow horses in Real Tigers. In this book, readers discover what happened to JK Coe prior to becoming a slow horse and why he is a little, ahem, jumpy. Ingrid Tearney is at her manipulative and conniving best.You can find a recent podcast on Irish Times with Herron when he released Joe Country, one of the Slough House series, a favorite of mine. Bettany had worked deep-cover, infiltrating the network of arms dealers, the Brothers McGarry, and from the outset he is suspicious of his son’s death: was it revenge because of him? He sees shady characters at the crematorium, and tries to get answers from his son’s employer – the creator of computer games, and to trace the source of the drugs – pitting him against the London underworld (Bishop is a stand-out), Baltic drug dealers, and the ruthless Dame Ingrid Tearney (First desk at MI5). Like a tethered goat, “Dame Spook” uses the gullible JK Coe of Psych Eval as her go-between and Bettany – signalling Coe’s eventual fate as a “Slow Horse”. Undercover, after all, was what Bettany did when his own life failed him. Undercover meant dropping out of sight, leading somebody else's life in a succession of foreign cities. It meant leaving everything behind.

Nobody Walks by Mick Herron | Goodreads Nobody Walks by Mick Herron | Goodreads

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.The explanation of young Liam's death makes little sense to Tom, who begins to make enquiries of his own. Suspicion lands on Vincent Driscoll, Liam's rather odd games-designer boss, and this raises a red flag for MI5. With Driscoll having recently been vetted for national honours, Dame Ingrid Tearney wants to deal with the situation very discreetly, so she enlists JK Coe, a still wet-behind-the-ears officer from Psych Eval, to act as go-between. Tearney and Bettany are a match for each other, but only one of them knows what's really going on.