The Catch

This is a novella not directly connected to the Slow Horses series but with references to it and a familiar character that ties it in beautifully, with all the intrigue, suspense and humor that Herron fans have come to love plus a new, unique aspect to spycraft that I had never considered. It leaves one hungry for more.

Slough House spy tales are all really really good but the best of them, of which this is one, are stone cold killers. They combine an unblinkingly skeptical take on British spydom with Herron’s affection for his misfit and unsuccessful spy actors and a wry, at moments even breakout, sense of humor. In these stories, MI5’s dysfunctionality is matched only by the self-interest of its masters, who abandon their most faithful minions for the smallest almost infinitesimal advantage. They’re monsters who don’t even notice e it. The Catch is only 83 pages, barely even a novella, but what a concentrated loaded of venom it delivers.John Bachelor is a “milkman,” the lowest grade of intelligence agents. He’s never been a “Joey,” the Company’s term for a field agent past or present, and not even a “suit,” deskbound support. He’s a loser, pure and simple, who has screwed up virtually every operation he has been assigned and now is reduced to the lowest level of the MI5 echelon, a three days a week part-time employee of the agency who checks on how the agency’s aging and now retired former agents are still doing.Of the milkmen, John is probably the worst, not so much because he’s corrupt as because he’s flaccid. And that’s the problem because someone one, at first we don’t know who, is pressuring John on one of his minor longstanding corruptions.For over a month now, John has been occupying the flat of an MI5 agent whose death Bachelor has failed to report –no rent, hid utilities paid for out of the dead agent’s monthly pay check.Now someone wants payoff. But the information they want is from another fudged file of John’s so John doesn’t know what to tell them He isn’t hiding the truth from his adversaries. He doesn’t know it. The ending of this little razor sharp blades is appropriately grim, but ironic in equal doses. This is an exceptional spy thriller which has no equal in present day spy fiction..

Mick Herron’s Slough House is where MI5 deposits the spooks it wants to fire but can’t, hoping they will quit out of shame, boredom, or fear of Jackson Lamb, the unhygienic Cold Warrior who rules the place like a personal fiefdom. Despite their incompetence—or perhaps because of it—the “slow horses,” as they’re derisively called, keep finding themselves in the middle of a national emergency or an MI5 op, which seem to be the same thing at times. And Jackson Lamb knows how to leverage these crises for the benefit of him and his crew.Herron has published six novels in this series, with the seventh, Slough House, scheduled to release February 5, 2021. Each of them combines poetic prose (check out the openings and closings of each book especially), a convoluted plot worthy of John Le Carré, and some of the funniest characters and scenes in suspense noveldom. (You might hold your nose at Jackson Lamb’s vulgarity and stench, but he will make you laugh.)In between novels, Herron occasionally produces novellas, such as The List (2015), The Drop (2018), and The Catch (2020). All of them feature John Bachelor, an MI5 “milkman” or handler of aged or retired MI5 assets, whose wife got the house and pension in the divorce and whose part-time salary doesn’t really cover expenses. So, as The Catch opens, he’s living in the apartment of the late Solomon Dortmund, last seen alive in The Drop and whose permanent retirement has not yet been noticed by “the Park” (MI5 HQ).Or has it been? When Bachelor gets rousted out of Dortmund’s bed by Park employees, it’s clear HQ knows what’s going on. Bachelor is tasked with finding Benny Manors, a former asset he’s supposed to keep track of but lost long ago. In the process of finding him, Bachelor realizes Manors has the Jeffrey-Epstein goods on HRH What’s His Face, and alerts Lady Diana Tavener, the Park’s master, about Manors’ con in the offing. But when it comes to MI5, who’s conning whom?Neither Jackson Lamb nor his Slough House epigones show their faces in The Catch, but Herron always seems to weave the threads of these novellas into his novels, so don’t be surprised if something here shows up in his forthcoming book in one way or another.If you haven’t read the Slough House novels, you can skip The Catch, but if you’re current with the series and have a hankering for Herron, The Catch is a good, well, catch.

Mick Herron is a superb mystery/ spy/ writer. His novels take us to the secret alleys of MI-5. One such place is Slough House a place for wayward MI-5 agents. Those who did somebody wrong, make a bad, bad mistake, had an affair that did not go down well, became an alcoholic, which was a fear they could let secrets out, because really many MI-5 agents drink and smoke a lot. That is a trade mark of sorts. The people sent to Slough House are intelligent and wise, they made a blunder, but not the kind that could get them fired. They were sent to Slough House to do repetitive work, in hopes they would become so bored, they would quit. Getting to know the people who populate the MI-5, is necessary to understand the workings of this agency. Like our CIA, politics runs the day, but if I had a choice, I would go for the MI-5. This novel like many from Mick Herron moves slowly at first, but it revs up considerably, so stay in there.These characters are not Slough House, a rung below, maybe. John Bachelor, we know from other novellas, and he has some secrets, but who doesn’t. He is a spook, and is thought of as a milkman. Someone to be used, to pass on info or someone to find someone else. A useful bloke, but that is all. This is John’s story, almost. But it is also that dead pedophile from the states. It starts out slow, but it moves along. Try to keep pace.Recommended. prisrob 01-31-2020

A bit overpriced, considering nearly the half the book is a "preview" for something else, but well worth reading just the same.

Five stars says it all.

A short novella capitalizing on names in the news but a enough of a story line to capture vintage Heron humor.

The books are better than the excellent TV series - he is my (current) favourite author :-)

Love this whole series but it is important to insert these novellas into chronological order with the full novels. Some key pieces in this one that provide foundation for characters and story lines in the main books. Sadly I discovered them after I had read all of the full novels. But still great reading.