“Right now, though, John Bachelor is warm, he is fed; there is wine in Solomon’s larder. In a minute, he’ll go pour himself a glass. But for now he’ll sit and watch the quiet snow”. So concludes The Drop, the second in a sequential set of stories that satellite the Slow Horses universe.
WATCH THE QUIET SNOW is the title of the book that collects Mick Herron’s Slough House novellas in one volume, comprising The List, The Drop, The Last Dead Letter, The Catch and Standing By The Wall.
Readers will be pleased to discover there are links and echoes to the Slow Horses series in Mick Herron’s latest page turning tome, and the pace keeps apace, accelerating on with an exhilarating rush of adrenaline as secrets are exhumed, the undiscovered “joe” country explored, the mean streaks of spook street examined.
Prerequisite passages of precise prose are pearls that Herron has been cultivating throughout his years of storytelling and he knows how to string them, his deftness for dialogue runs rings round many tin eared dramatists.
A little bit like The Secret Hours, WATCH THE QUIET SNOW is a Slow Horses tale but it isn’t, a subtle bit of literary subterfuge. Di Taverner, Roddy Ho, Molly Doran, and the ubiquitous Jackson Lamb all pop up, so really it is.
WATCH THE QUIET SNOW is back story and side show, but presented as main attraction and there is certainly nothing secondary about these concisely delivered divertisements in deception.
Two of the stories take their titles from old school trade craft – The Drop and The Last Dead Letter – and there is something significantly satisfying in their execution. Significantly sad, as well.
The spying game is the lying game and gives little of succour or solace in what can appear as a soulless existence.
“And the snow stays where it is, and the weather doesn’t turn, and the streets remain cold, and the days are dark from dawn to dusk.”
On Spook Street, surveillance never sleeps, and a cold war continues, quieter than the falling snow.
WATCH THE QUIET SNOW by Mick Herron is published by Baskerville .
