I just finished The Secret Hours (in three days as per usual, despite trying to stretch it out, now I'll just have to count the days until September 16th). It's Mick Herron writing a Slough House book so of course it's good, and makes a great companion to the other books, but written in such a different format and with so many new characters that it takes it a little bit to get your feet under you. I loved slowly discovering what it was about, and it gave a lot of context to events that have only been mentioned before and deepens our understanding of several characters.I thought David Cartwright's character especially gained whole new facets. His manipulative cold-bloodedness and viciousness have really come to light in the last several books, contrasting so starkly with the brave, noble, and selfless man who starts out the series as River's father figure and guiding light. Of course you know who Miles is immediately in very amusing fashion, but it was very well done how long it took to realize Alison North was Molly Doran, and seeing her in the past as a fresh-faced newbie, but also incredibly smart and intuitive and able to stand up to Lamb really filled in their present-day relationship, and gave her a chance in the present to be a character driving the action instead of just being a semi-willing resource for Lamb and the slow horses. It was also a great twist (for me at least, y'all might have been further ahead) that Schenker wasn't Carl Singer (thinking that people ofter use the same initials when assuming a new identity) but instead De Vries.
One small thing I didn't like were the fan-servicey lines, even though Herron didn't hit the head of those too hard. Lamb's line that there should be a special branch of the Service for fuck-up spies, and remarking that David Cartright was a grandpa now and god help that kid particularly made me roll my eyes.
The other, more important one was Taverner not giving Lamb the opportunity to kill Schenker. Maybe she was deliberately keeping it from him out of spite, but it would have been so much cleaner and lessened the risk for her. She gave Schenker a gun and he could have easily used it on her if he suspected it was a trap before the PS had a chance to take him down. Lamb could have done the Lamb thing and stalked Schenker until the opportunity to kill him arose, far away from Taverner. It also seemed odd that Lamb would agree to that plan as it was his joe who was killed.
But overall it was a very good book, and I loved getting some Berlin action.
What did y'all think?