A governmental think-tank, whose remit is to curb the independence of the intelligence service, has lost one of its key members, and Claude Whelan—one-time head of MI5's Regent’s Park—is tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads straight back to the Park itself, with Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Diana overplayed her hand at last? What’s her counterpart, Moscow’s First Desk, doing in London? And does Jackson Lamb know more than he’s telling?Over at Slough House, with Shirley Dander in rehab, Roddy Ho in dress rehearsal, and new recruit Ashley Khan turning up the heat, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation . . .There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned.
Copyright © 2022 by Mick Herron
All rights reserved.
Published by Soho Press, Inc.
227 W 17th Street
New York, NY 10011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Herron, Mick, author.
Title: Bad actors / Mick Herron.
Description: New York, NY : Soho Crime, [2022] |
Series: The slough house novels ; 8
Identifiers: LCCN 2021049127
ISBN 978-1-64129-337-2
eISBN 978-1-64129-338-9
Subjects: GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6108.E77 B33 2022 | DDC 823’.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021049127
Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
People deceived by bad actors do wicked things for good reasons.
The woods were lovely, dark, and deep, and full of noisy bastards. From his foxhole Sparrow could hear the grunting and thrashing of combat, of bodies crashing through foliage. Some things breaking were branches, and others might be bones. Sound travelled more cleanly in the countryside. This might not be true but it was interesting, which mattered more. Sound travelled more cleanly, so what he was hearing could include the fracturing of legs and fingers as well as splintering twigs. His foxhole wasn’t constructed; was simply a ditch in which he’d secreted himself while the opening sallies played out. The initial clash of armies was where you lost your cannon fodder. Once the dumb meat had been carted from the field, war passed into the hands of the thinkers.
Something clattered overhead, in a tree’s topmost branches. Only a bird. Meanwhile, battle continued: two forces of roughly equal size, blatant weaponry outlawed but anything that came to hand regarded as fair use. Sticks and stones for instance—and any experienced foot soldier had a favourite stick, a favourite stone, within easy reach when the starting whistle blew. Time, date, place, courtesy of social media. The old days, when you just rocked up to a car park near the stadium a few hours before kick-off, all of that was buried in history books and Channel 5 documentaries. Sparrow himself had been a toddler. Interesting, though: people thought, because they didn’t see football fans rucking in public anymore, that it didn’t happen. Just knowing that much about human nature was like having a big shiny key.
It was an education in itself, exploring the depths of other people’s ignorance and gullibility.
Some shouting in the near distance now. Nothing as coherent as words: just the familiar Esperanto of grunt and injury, the outward expression of a hatred that was absolutely pure and totally impersonal. Amateur violence signalled national character. Just as the French variety, with its short jabs and rabbit punches, seemed as crabbed and hunched as French handwriting, so English violence had the hallmarks of a ransom note: capital-lettered and often misspelt, but getting the message across. As for Italians—today’s opponents—they rucked the way they sang, their brawling round and bold and big-voiced, and if not for a relatively small turnout, they’d wind up kings of the woods today. Benito—the new Benito, whose predecessor had interestingly withdrawn from public view—would have led his troops away rejoicing. But that didn’t, from what Sparrow had seen so far, look likely.
For his own part, his interest was clinical. Untethered to any football team, he was nevertheless fascinated by the loyalties they inspired, regardless of history, abilities and triumphs, or lack thereof. By the
