After I found the second book in this series a bit disappointing (see ‘Dead Lions’) I was slow getting round to reading the next ones. Happily, ‘Real Tigers’ and then ‘Spook Street’ lived up to the promise of the original ‘Slow Horses’.

The shabby antihero Jackson Lamb is a constant but Herron isn’t afraid to drop some characters and bring in new ones, which gives the series so far the feeling of a continuing saga. Fast-paced, intriguing, and full of people with untrustworthy motives – both books are a good read.

Horowitz has written several books continuing the work of famous authors, notably Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes and Ian Fleming/James Bond. I read one of his Holmes books, ‘House of Silk’, and enjoyed it. This one, a Bond story, not so much. All his work in this genre (it’s probably rude to call it fanfic) is approved by the people who control the legacy of the characters.

It gets off to a rather clunky start with rather too much ‘new readers start here’ explanation which, I suspect, most readers won’t need or want. Further into the story it moves well but more than anything I felt I was reading a written version of a Bond movie. All the expected tropes are there – Russian villains, evil doctors, glamorous women for Bond to take to bed, torture and violence, and a climactic showdown at a famous landmark. Horowitz has taken his Bond further: he is now positively embracing the idea of packing all the 007 stuff in, but the ending leaves open the possibility of just one more time.

As far as I can remember I’ve only read two Bond books, Casino Royale and Dr No, and they were both a long time ago. Maybe all the later books have been in this style and Horowitz has faithfully stuck with it, but I had hoped for something a bit more intriguing and demanding of the reader rather than watching a movie in my head.

Suggested to me by an afficionada of the spy genre, I must admit that this book didn’t impress me at the start; the basis of the story seemed too improbable. But as I got further in it won me over and I ended up binge-reading the last two-thirds. A writer of spy fiction gets sucked into real-life black ops where no-one is ever quite who they seem to be, A good read.

The second in the Jackson Lamb series. I felt it lacked a little of the tautness of the first; it ranges over an area wider than the confined London of “Slow Horses“ and the plot requires a bigger stretch of the reader’s credulity. But all the same, it’s still a good fast-paced story, worth reading if you enjoyed the first book.

Recommended to me by an expert in the genre, this first story in a series featuring the character Jackson Lamb didn’t disappoint. It starts with a slow burn as Herron introduces his characters and sets up the basis for this and future stories, but once it gets going it crackles and sizzles along like a jumping cracker. Herron’s murky world of spooks and spies, double-cross and fit-ups, is entirely credible (at least to me as a lay reader!). On to the next in the series.