The politics and machinations at Regents’ Park, where an “audit” was underway and Diana Taverner’s deflection of a critical decision at a critical time to Roger Barrowby who was conducting the audit was masterful… as was his leaving gift. Roddy Ho is the computer whiz, uber-geek and the butt of everyone’s jokes, not just Lamb’s. He’s ineffectual, arrogant and completely unaware of his failings.

Slough House Series by Mick Herron - Goodreads Slough House Series by Mick Herron - Goodreads

Olivia Cooke as Sidonie "Sid" Baker (season 1), a competent MI5 agent inexplicably assigned to Slough House. Min Harper had left an important file on an underground train. In Catherine Standish’s case the error had been of a more personal kind – she had been an alcoholic. Possibly they might not have done anything wrong at all but had simply got in the way of a more ambitious colleague. They were given mainly routine tasks to do by their betters in The Park, the intention being that they would eventually be driven to hand in their resignations. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. Kristin Scott Thomas as Diana Taverner, the deputy director-general of MI5 and head of operations and designated "Second Desk".

Lamb – I do feel I have to include him – there is much I dislike about him but he is also engaging and loyal when his team are threatened (by anyone other than himself) and yes he does, as The Guardian interview with Herron suggests, bear echoes of Falstaff, unlikeable but compelling in a horrible way.

Slow Horses - Wikipedia Slow Horses - Wikipedia

Rade Serbedzija as Nikolai Katinsky, a former KGB agent living in exile in London after defecting at the end of the Cold War. Dead Lions is the second book in a planned series of three about the inhabitants of Slough House in central London, the first, Slow Horses, having been a finalist for the Crime Writers’ Association Steel Dagger Award in 2010. Slough House and slow horses are associated by a pun which is deliberately not very good. Its inhabitants are members of MI5 – not the real Premier League MI5, which is near Regents Park, but its poor Division 2 relation at an outpost in the city. Slow horses is the name given to those members of the service whose careers have been blighted by an error of some kind.Hobden meets with Judd and tries to convince him to go public with the information that Hassan's kidnapping is a setup, only to be rebuked. Curly is seen making a series of discreet calls with a burner phone, implying he is Taverner's mole. Hassan tries to escape and is threatened by Moe. Giving him a chance to save face, Taverner offers Lamb's team the opportunity to signal to her man the raid is about to commence, allowing him to escape with Hassan. He, River, Min and Louisa arrive at the property but upon entry discover it empty aside from Moe's beheaded corpse.

DEAD LIONS | Kirkus Reviews DEAD LIONS | Kirkus Reviews

Jaime Segura, a young immigrant to Britain with a gun, takes several hostages one morning at Continue reading » At the start of this beautifully written and ingeniously plotted standalone from Herron (Nobody Walks), 26-year-old mail room employee Maggie Barnes is trying hard not to get caught late one Continue reading »Sophie Okonedo as Ingrid Tearney (series 1, expected to appear in series 3), the Director-General of MI5, often referred to as "First Desk". Mind you, I am not the only one who took their time coming across this series: Dead Lions wasn’t able to find a UK publisher for years and sank without a trace initially according to The Guardian, and Waterstones made Slow Horses their thriller of the month seven years after it first publication. They have a charming interview with Herron here.