“Old spies grow ridiculous, River. Old spies aren’t much better than clowns.” Or so David Cartwright, the late retired head of MI5, used to tell his grandson. He forgot to add that old spies can be dangerous, too, especially if they’ve fallen on hard times—as River Cartwright is about to learn the hard way. David Cartwright, long buried, has left his library to the Spooks’ College in Oxford, and now one of the books is missing. Or perhaps it never existed. River, once a “slow horse” of Slough House, MI5’s outpost for demoted and disgraced spies, has some time to kill while awaiting medical clearance to return to work, and starts investigating the secrets of his grandfather’s library. Over at the Park, MI5 First Desk Diana Taverner is in a pickle. An operation carried out during the height of the Troubles laid bare the ugly side of state security, and those involved are threatening to expose details. But every threat hides an opportunity, and Taverner has come up with a scheme. All she needs is the right dupe to get caught holding the bag. Jackson Lamb, the enigmatic and odiferous head of Slough House, has no plans to send in the clowns. On the other hand, if the clowns ignore his instructions, any harm that befalls them is hardly his fault. But they’re his clowns. And if they don’t all make it home, there’ll be a reckoning.”
More than once, I’ve felt that Jackson Lamb’s battle with Diana Taverner resembles the fight between the Doctor and the Master in DOCTOR WHO. Jackson is not a Doctor we would be allowed to have (though it comes close with the early episodes of Peter Capaldi’s tenure as the Doctor), but Taverner comes close to the Master, the one played by Roger Delgado in the Third Doctor days (and Herron has made many references to that BBC series in his books). It always struck me that Delgado’s Master was perfect manipulator of other people (and other aliens). He rarely (if ever) actually killed anyone –he had his hypnotized believers to do that, so there was always plausible deniability. Here Diana uses other people, manipulates both River and Sid, and four retired joes from the late 1980s/early 90s (who Lamb calls The Thursday Murder club at one point) to eliminate Peter Judd, who has been a thorn in the side of Taverner for several books and holds a secret that could dismantle everything she’s done since assuming the First Desk. And Diana –Lady Di- loves power and the creature comforts that come with it to have Judd ruin everything she has worked hard for.
She may be evil, but she isn’t dumb.
And Lamb, who misses nothing, sees things too clearly (though sometimes after things have shifted into play.
Clown Town
is a return to form, though I’ve liked all the books. The final third is a
runaway train with Herron's ability to combine action, farce, tragedy (we lose
another joe) and taking on politics (though clearly made up here, it does resembles
real life politic too well). As I noted, Lamb could be a Doctor if the BBC
really let the character be more realistic and less fantasy. Because it would
be interesting to see what this Time Lord would do when pushed into a corner,
with a companions (or Lamb’s joes) put in the position that Taverner put both
Sid and River.
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