Not to be found ever written down, the London Rules are the unspoken guidelines followed like gospel by the spies that lurk in the shadows: cover your arse.

The fifth book in Mick Herron’s Slough House series, London Rules, opens with a shocking attack in Derbyshire, on the unassuming village of Abbotsfield. Surprisingly, ISIS claims involvement, and it’s up to our dear Slow Horses to start piecing the bigger picture together – with the interfering help of Regents Park, of course.

This time, Herron delves deeper into contemporary British politics, especially where it concerns Brexit at the time of the book’s writing: after the attack in Abbotsfield, politicians are among the first to start asking questions. They are then the first to start answering them, too.

The Park suffers from internal rivalries, most notably between Claude Whelan (First Desk) and Diana Taverner (the actual First Desk), and Emma Flyte (current Head Dog) finds that her morals and values continue to be challanged just by being involved in the Secret Service .

As usual, Herron’s humour shines through brightly, especially where one Shirley Dander is concerned (what with her combative anger management issues that she is apparently trying to get under wraps). I do adore Herron’s writing style and how descriptive he gets with things. Part of what draws me to the series, other than the loveable failures that are the Slow Horses themselves, is the detail of the writing and the inctricate moods that Herron weaves through words. Weather, I find, can be tricky to write about, but each time Herron introduces the sun shining or the rain falling like it’s its own character!

Lamb though, yeesh; maybe he’s getting worse and worse, book after book. Disregarding, for a second, his lack of hygiene, his general bedside manner is appalling. Interactions between characters – especially interactions involving Lamb – remain snappish and snide, bordering on cruel sometimes. Found family is one of my favourite tropes! So I can’t deny the subtle taste of bitterness left behind after each nasty conversation; I’m living for the moments where concern and care are shared between everyone! So far, championing the camaraderie tends to fall upon Catherine and Louisa and, at times, River. Roddy remains awful, and Shirley has a thicker skin to her after Marcus’ demise, too. Lamb, obviously, is blatant with his dismissal of everyone and everything, but Herron does a good job of (showing the readers at least) that Lamb does actually care deeply for his Joes. In his own way.

Roddy, the local tech master at Slough House, and the relationship that he has with the mysterious ‘Kim’, takes centre stage in book five – which means we see even more of Roddy’s delightful character. I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s a huge pet peeve of mine for books that have multiple voices to fail at expressing each and every one of them; where they make it impossible for the reader to distinguish who’s who. Herron has no problem with this, and he really does so well in shaping unique voices for all his characters. It’s very apparent when reading, just who we’re following with each point of view change.

And I love reading from “the Rodster’s” point of view in particular because his delusion knows no bounds. He’s shocking. And seeing his comeuppance each time always makes me cackle. It’s obvious to the audience, and to anyone in Slough House with a brain, that Kim has just been using Roddy for her own gains, but how it all ties in together so nicely with the initial attack at the book’s start is masterfully done.

As always, Mick Herron’s work provides such a satisfying read!

J.K. Coe really got a lot of time to shine this time round, too! We had already seen some of his rather emotionless attitude and aversive nature in Spook Street, but the detached ruthlessness that he shows in London Rules caught me quite unawares. He’s fast becoming a favourite of mine, though, and I’m hoping for him to start feeling more at home at Slough House and amongst the Slow Horses!

The ending, when it came, was unexpected, and the Slow Horses ended up seeing far more action than they no doubt ever imagined they would after ending up in Slough House (especially Coe and Shirley). And Herron, despite the ensemble, manages to move back and forth between characters, affording everyone their own storyline and sufficient time to wrap things up neatly; and leaving me very satisfied with my reading experience.

It was another great installment to Mick Herron’s Slough House series and I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it!

***

As for the Apple TV+ show, and with each new season, I continue to find it very interesting to see the changes made from book to screen. Sometimes it’s the settings that get changed. Other times entire characters get swapped out or done away with completley.

In season five of the show, River and Shirley follow Roddy to a club to keep a close eye on him, and a great conflict is created between the two because neither one are okay. Shirley because of Marcus’ death, and River because of his grandfather’s deterioating health, and not least because of the murderous nature of his apparent father, Frank. In the book, it’s River and Louisa that track Roddy’s movements to the club.

Though perhaps this change, and perhaps Louisa Guy’s general absence from this season, could be explained away by the brilliant actress who portrays her, Rosalind Eleazar, having other filming commitments during the shooting of Slow Horses.

Other changes are more fun and make for better viewing experiences: when Roddy hears a noise in his apartment, he takes up a comically large, colour changing sword to defend himself with.

And it’s been great to actually see Lamb’s resourcefulness and incredible skills in action as well: his ability to sneak around so silently never fails to impress me and his Slow Horse charges alike.

The show, like the book, is just pure joy, and I can’t wait to see how they choose to adapt book six for the screen when Slow Horses returns in September!