“A
shakeup at MI5 and a terrorist attack on British soil set in motion clandestine
machinery known to few modern spies. David Cartwright isn't a modern spy,
however; he's legend and a bonafide Cold War hero. He's also in his dotage and
losing his mind to Alzheimer's. His stories of -stotes- hiding in the bushes,
following his every move have been dismissed by friends and family for years.
Cartwright may be losing track of reality but he's certain about one thing: Old
spooks don't go quietly and neither do the secrets they keep. So what happens
when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for
those who know too many secrets but don't remember they're secret? Or does
someone take care of the senile spy for good? These are the questions River
Cartwright must ask when his grandfather, starts to forget to wear pants and
begins to suspect everyone in his life has been sent by the Home Office to
watch him. River has the other thing worry about, because that bomb has killed
forty innocent civilians. The agents of Slough House have to figure out who is
behind this act of terror before the situation escalates.”
It’s
been noted that Mick Herron often refrains from creating extensive
character back stories, and for three books and a novella so far, this has
remained true. We know that River Cartwright is the center of the Slough House
universe, beyond Jackson Lamb, and a lot of the reasons he remains within Lambs
grasp is because his grandfather, David, holds many secrets and also realizes
that with his age and Alzheimer’s, is bound to cause problems down the line. In
Spook Street, this comes to fruition (because mortality, addiction and ancestral
sin are the many themes that play-out through the series). What is learned here
points everything into a new direction.
For want of a better
description, Spook Street moves fast, and plays out more like a spy thriller
than ever. River goes off mostly on his own to solve why someone targeted his
grandfather, which means using the passport of assassin that almost succeeded
(who strangely looks similar to River). That leads to France and recently
burned out building in Les Arbres and where River finds more questions than
answers.
Meanwhile, Lamb tries to stall
and find out how terror attack and the assassination attempt are connected to
the Service. As always, despite him claiming so, Lamb knows things and his
instincts are usually correct. This plugs into another theme of Herron’s, that Secret
Service operates like any other workplace where "people are often doing
quite dull jobs and working with other people who they don’t necessarily like,
with a lot of office politics going on.”
Spook House remains true to
the previous tales, with his farcical look at bureaucrats of the modern era,
with a deeply cynical and often funny and darkly slanted take on politics,
spies, peoples foibles, and world at large.
I cannot get enough.
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