Reading for pleasure

Mick Herron (Baskerville: £18.99; e-book £0.99)

This is the eighth volume of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses books. For those not in the know, their premise is fairly straightforward once you suspend disbelief. Slough House is a nondescript building somewhere in London. Members of the Secret Service who have fouled up in some way are exiled here to while away their days in tasks so tedious that it is hoped they will quit, avoiding the inconvenience and expense to the Service of having to fire them.

Slough House is presided over by Jackson Lamb, he of Machiavellian wiles and quite loathsome personal habits. Slough House/slow horses – get it now? But of course, nothing is ever as slow as it seems, nor the world as simple. In fact, Mick Herron’s skill has turned the place into the scene of many an adventure, each one more convoluted than the one before.

Great to have an imagination. This book has the background of 10 Downing Street occupied by a man considerably short on attention to detail, and a special adviser intent on centralising power and getting rid of inconvenient democratic checks and balances. No idea how you thought that one up, Mick.

Here a member of a Number 10 think tank has disappeared. Or has she? And what is Jackson’s nemesis, “Lady” Di Tavenier up to, hobnobbing with her Russian counterpart over vodka and caviar at the embassy? In contrast to so many spy novels which are clearly written with one eye to the movie rights, Herron’s novels have more lyrical sections, such as his descriptions of the woodlands which are the site of a bloody encounter between football fans, or the wind whistling round the decrepit Slough House itself. Get to p 300 and you may think you know where it’s going. Except you don’t. It's gripping stuff and I’m never quite sure that I’ve grasped all the strands, never mind been able to join them up.

It's extraordinary to think that 12 years have elapsed since the first in the series. While each book is a novel in its own right and not a serial, I would advise new readers to start at the beginning, the better to understand the development of some of the characters. But would I recommend it? I’m drumming my fingers. Come on, Mick, where’s the next one?

Ian Rankin (Orion: £22; e-book £10.99)

It’s perhaps the worst kept secret in the world of publishing. John Rebus finds himself in the dock. Don’t worry, this isn’t a spoiler, as it’s announced in the very first sentence of Ian Rankin’s latest masterwork.

But what for? Well, you have to wait another 325 pages to learn that, and I’m certainly not going to tell you. In the interim there a few deaths, a petrol bombing and immersion in the very murky depths of Tynecastle police station. Hitherto, references in Rankin’s works have been to real police premises. When you learn more about this place, you can see why it had to be invented. Some of the names ring a bell. Have we previously encountered Alan Fleck, retired police sergeant, turned used car dealer? As straight as a nine bob note.

But we do meet some old acquaintances. Friends such as Siobhan Clarke, foes like Malcom Fox and, of course, Rebus’s nemesis, Morris “Big Ger” Cafferty.

Cafferty recruits the now retired Rebus to trace a missing man. The twist (well, the first of many) is that the gentleman in question is assumed to have been murdered some years earlier on the instructions of Mr Cafferty himself. He wants him found for what reason? Oh, to make amends. Aye, right. So the quest takes our John to a dodgy lettings agency. The wife of the owner just happens to be Big Ger’s ex-squeeze. Then there’s the wife beating cop whose spouse has a pushy sister going through a messy divorce. The cop is threatening to pull skeletons out of Tynecastle closets, and maybe or maybe not our John might have been involved… Stop me if I’m going too fast.

One thing is for sure. There’s no stopping Ian Rankin when he’s on a roll. Except, that is, his wife who has promised divorce if he doesn’t take a year off. So it’ll be 2024 before you learn what happened next.

Denzil Meyrick (Polygon: £9.99; e-book £3.99)

Denzil Meyrick follows his delightful A Toast to the Old Stones with this equally heartwarming and humorous novella. We step back in time to join Hamish as a young man, when he is taken on by Sandy Hoynes, the well kent skipper. Hoynes’ rival as a youth is “Dreich” MacCallum, earned by demeanour and nature. Hoynes’ boat, the Girl Maggie, goes into the boatyard for some remedial work, when it causes untold damage to the new boat brought to Kinloch by “Dreich” MacCallum. And what a long held rivalry and unrequited dislike of each other! Hoynes sets off to avoid the ensuing conflict with young Hamish aboard. The spirits of the Old Stones reappear. 

A fellow reader, on meeting the engaging and charming Mr Meyrick at the recent “Bloody Scotland” festival, said of his character DS Scott in the DCI Daley books, that they were the only detective books which had caused him to laugh out loud at the dialogue. This book is equally engaging. The banter in the County Hotel, between the young and old fishermen and their wives and family, are all written with such wit. This is a book to take to a quiet corner amidst the bustle of the festive season, switch off and allow yourself to be transported to Kinloch and spend a happy afternoon in the company of real characters of a bygone age.  

Robert Harris (Cornerstone: £22; e-book £10.99)

This is the second book reviewed with the unusual pricing of £22. Was this previously £25 or an increase from £20? This is a lengthy book for the cash. 

“From what is it they flee?”
He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, “They killed the King.”

King Charles I was executed in 1649 following the English Civil War, which arose due to the perceived absolute monarchy pursued by the King and the resistance to that by the Parliamentarian New Model Army under Cromwell. Charles I had been born in the palace at Dunfermline, Scotland’s most recent city. On the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the Indemnity and Oblivion Act was passed which sought, in short, to indemnify losses caused by the war, restoration of church and land, and a general pardon for crime committed with the exception of the most serious crimes. Finally, it sought the capture and execution of those involved in the trial and execution of the King: the regicides. 

This novel follows the trail of General Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe, father- and son-in-law, who, unlike most of the regicides, escaped by crossing the Atlantic. They, like the others, had been found guilty in absentia for their involvement in the murder of the King. Their chief pursuer was Richard Nayler, secretary to the regicide committee of the Privy Council. There then follows vivid description of the regular movement of the two men as they hide in a variety of homes and towns of supporters of the Puritan faith who have set up home in, mainly, Connecticut, New England. Intertwined is the life led by their families in London, impoverished as they lose their homes. The Great Fire of London makes an appearance. Nayler’s career fortunes rise along with those of the Lord Chancellor. 

There is a cinematic quality to this book. Not knowing much of this period of history, this reviewer was compelled to do a little research along the way. The second half of the book moves at pace, as the regicides grow older, have been separated from their families for so long and Nayler continues in his relentless task of finding them. One to be enjoyed!