The third installments of Mick Herron’s Slough House series, Real Tigers, is a twisted web of future backstabbing. And man was it fun to read!
The book starts off with a kidnapping. Of Catherine Standish. She tried her best to not get caught, but in the end they nabbed her, but it’s soon that she discovers a former, fellow alcoholic and lover is one of the people responsible. Strangely, she’s not treated like much of a prisoner. It becomes clear that they are trying to use her as leverage to get something from the Park. But that knowledge is not available at Slough House, which is how River ends up in the basement-basement of the Park taking a serious beating from the leader of the Dogs.
The rest of Lamb’s agents get to work in their own chaotic way of trying to find out what’s going on in relation to Catherine’s kidnapping. Even Ho is partial to helping out more than usual. Lamb is of course the wisest of them all and seems to have correct hunches that unearth themselves without much of a struggle. It turns out that Catherine was taken by a third party “tiger team” hired by Diana Taverner in an attempt to both help out the new home secretary while at the same time trying to undermine first desk, and Diana’s boss, Ingrid Tearney. There’s plenty of backstabbing going on with that trio as well, much to the detriment of Slough House. They end up being collateral damage to a job that has gone off script.
What this tiger team is really after is apparently a book of documents full of mainly conspiracy theories. But that’s not entirely true either. There is a complicated past with the tiger team and MI5, and they are looking to get that past exposed. But even with the luck of having so many damning documents housed off-site, they underestimate the misguided loyalty Slough House has for one another. The job get really messy and really violent, and a little concerning, but I love how Slough House always comes out like a cat dropped from a big height: on all fours, as if nothing’s happened.
The personal relationships between characters continues to grow deeper, and I am still particularly drawn to Shirley and Marcus’ relationship. Lamb still remains my favorite character. I love that someone so lazy and looked down on is so clever and quick in so many ways. He always seems to be several steps ahead of everybody, all while caring for his agents in a way he’d absolutely never admit to. I’m excited to keep going with this series!