Revenge, we’re often told, is best served cold, but is it really revenge if it takes decades? Dead Lions, the second in the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron and adapted to be the second series of the Apple TV hit Slow Horses, is on one level and for some characters a revenge story, but it is even more interesting when it takes on the traditions and culture of spook world, and considers how these may be kept current in a world which is far removed from the Cold War but still considers the decades before 1989 as the glory years.

As usual, I watched the adaptation before reading the book, but I re-watched the final two episodes as although the themes are consistent there are, as you’d expect, considerable differences in the detail. In particular, what happens at Upshott, the Cotswold village to which River Cartwright is dispatched as an undercover agent, involves a different cast with different motivations – and, to be honest, the book presents a far more personal reason for revenge than we see on TV, even if the description does rather veer into the realms of Blofeld’s ‘angels of death’. And while the book shows MI5 reeling under the dead hand of bean counters, the TV series instead indicates that both MI5 and the Home Office are of secondary importance to the personal agendas of their leaders (or wannabe leaders). Either way, it’s down to Jackson Lamb to properly follow up the deaths of long-retired joe Richard ‘Dickie Bow’ Bough and of a currently serving agent. 

Lamb remains a truly fascinating creation and the creative core of the series. Mick Herron likes to describe the thought processes of many of his characters but what we get with Lamb is different: moments of exposition through discussion and the series of one-liners and dodgy personal hygiene practices that provide the facade he’s built as a survival mechanism. Not all of Lamb’s preposterousness arises from being performatively obnoxious and I think that Herron has most fun with him when Lamb is just plain odd: 

‘Call her Guy,’ [said Lamb,] ‘it’s not a disco.’

The thing to do here, they all decided independently, was not waste a whole lot of time asking why that might make it a disco.

But if Lamb gets the best lines, either to speak himself or to have him as their object, the core of the actual Slough House community is Catherine Standish, the easily underestimated executive assistant who shows nous and steel in this thriller. She is the only one who can handle Roddy Ho, who is a terrible person. TV Roddy has a bit of an adventure as a result, but even book Roddy gets to make a killer breakthrough.

But I mentioned the glory years, and there’s a clear divide between the generations: first, Lamb and David Cartwright who saw it all and wish they could unsee some of it. Despite his slovenly behaviour, Lamb’s still got it, whatever it is:

Nothing in his physical appearance suggested Lamb could move quickly, but something about his presence suggested you’d be unwise to dismiss the possibility.

Similarly, Diana Taverner didn’t get to Second Desk without being able to function politically and probably, still, operationally.

But by the time we reach the latest generation, we find a cohort that’s still starry-eyed about the work they are doing. Spider Webb thinks he’s really Machiavellian and strategic but he can’t even fill a suit and his attempts to impress are pathetic. River gets ‘a sense of wonderment’ that he should be face to face with a genuine Cold War operative, the enemy of his grandfather and Jackson Lamb. They are both still boys in a world that takes itself incredibly seriously. Perhaps that’s why River is able to think about the moral impact of the decisions that his grandfather has taken, even if his response to the ex-Soviet spook is that ‘it was all a long time ago’, which as Herron points out means nothing and never has.

The divergence between the book and TV series just plays to the strengths of each format. Curiously, the book has to my mind the simpler plot, but benefits from being able to feature a denouement on a church graveyard bench, while TV shows us motorbikes, helicopters and Cessnas and we are so excited that we can nearly forgive a poorly-CGId train supposedly travelling from Fenchurch Street to Tunbridge Wells (a journey which to be even possible requires different rolling stock). 

By the end of the adventure, the UK is safer again, but that’s due at least as much to natural mortality as to all the running and jumping from the horses and from the show ponies at the Park. Somehow, being bright and brilliant isn’t enough. In the meantime, better practice the one liners. 

Our other Slow Horses/Slough House coverage:

Slow Horses

The List

Nobody Walks

Real Tigers

Spook Street

London Rules