Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
Though it may be an outlier opinion, Mick Herron’s Slough House novellas are even more engaging and thought provoking than the author’s Slough House novels, or the Apple TV+ adaptations. Contained in one volume are five novellas. All that is needed is the gift-wrapping for the perfect Christmas present.
These five stories are wonderful because despite their length, they will linger in the mind, provoking deep thought and at times make the reader smile.
The first two stories have an air of pathos as they both feature John Batchelor, a minor character who could be considered a loser. This low-level MI5 ‘handler’ for ‘The Park’ [as opposed to ‘Slough House’] in the opening novella - The List, takes on the Aegis of one of his charges [Dieter Hess] an East German Cold Warrior of little importance, even in death – except for Batchelor and a suspicious secret service. Diana Taverner appears as do members of the Slough House ensemble. Jackson Lamb and Catherine Standish are mentioned in despatches, scribbled notes with Bachelor’s opportunity turning to desperation.
The Drop is the second novella also featuring John Batchelor [as well as Diana Taverner] and revolves around an eponymous [and mysterious] exchange [‘aka ‘drop’] in a London café, and its significance.
Batchelor returns in the third novella The Catch in a minor role, tracking and tracing the theft of secrets from ‘The Park’.
The fourth novella is the standout, worth the price of the collection alone. The Last Dead Letter is set in a Church, hidden away at the bottom of a cul-de-sac in Hampstead. Molly Doran [MI5’s archivist] has summoned Jackson Lamb to talk through an event that occurred during the cold war in a divided Berlin. It gives readers a glimpse into Jackson Lamb’s past in Germany and a brush with East German secret police [aka the ‘Stasi’]. Filled with Lamb’s acerbic wit deployed to camouflage the horror of the situation. Lamb’s assertion that there was little he could have done differently at the time is his way to manage the darkness of his memory. Like many situations during the Cold War, Lamb justifies the tragic end result as a fait accompli. On reaching the end, I quickly returned to the beginning, savouring Herron’s clever plotting and the real human cost behind The Last Dead Letter. The story is dark and haunting. It reminded me of a line Dennis Lehane once stated “In Greek tragedy, they fall from great heights. In noir, they fall from the curb.”
To close the collection we have something lighter, a Christmas tale Standing by the Wall featuring an insight into morality and consequence with Roddy Ho and the Slough House inhabitants considering their profession.
Beautifully packaged, this collection is presented within an artistically amusing jacket design which will appeal not only to readers of Mick Herron’s novels, but also to those who have only watched the Apple TV+ adaptations. It might get the latter group to venture into the bookstore to finally read the novels, because as well written as the TV adaptions are, the novels that they are based upon - are finer.
