The Washington Post has an article about new thrillers and what to drink with them – well I can do that.
I read a review of Mick Herron’s latest, London Rules, in The Spectator and thought it worth a try, only I got the first in the series, Slow Horses, and I’m glad I did as I will definitely read them all ( five so far).
If you are male, enjoy books by Len Deighton and John le Carré and like to read with a glass in your hand – look no further. Mick’s oeuvre is best read on ‘planes as you might feel just the tiniest bit guilty reading them in your own time, as it were. It is self-indulgence to treat oneself to such glorious, undemanding and addictive stuff. They are well-plotted, well-written and well-funny. I haven’t read anything so good since John Niven’s Straight White Male.
Fractious children, knees prodding your back, an overlapping neighbour and insufficient legroom will all evaporate if you immerse yourself in Mick’s genre of on-the-money comedy spy thrillers. A couple of splits of red to start with and then brandy and soda and before you know it you will be on the ground at Newark or wherever. Of their type they are perfect; not books you will want to read again but books you will never regret reading.
Meanwhile, I am on volume six of Dance to the Music of Time and it has an especially lentissimo opening that has all the urgency of a piece by Wagner. I shall reward myself at the end with another shot of Mick Herron.