The List is the first in a series of novellas that run alongside the novels in the Slough House series. At 67 pages I’d call this a short story, not a novella, but who cares? The set-up is exquisite, and the dialogue whip-sharp, just as you’d expect from Herron. Plot twists abound.

John Bachelor is a milkman; in charge of retired assets (spooks), ‘his role was to make sure they suffered no unwelcome intrusions, no mysterious clicks on the landline; above all, that they weren’t developing a tendency to broadcast the details of their lives to anyone who cared to listen.’ When one of his charges, Dieter Hess dies (of natural causes), Bachelor discovers a coded list of names hidden in his apartment. And so the fun begins!

This may be a short, sharp read, but it’s still brimming with quotable quotes and brilliant analogies:

On a chest of drawers sat a hairbrush still clogged with old-man hair. Bachelor shuddered, as if something with a heavy tread had stomped across his future.

She [Catherine] had fallen far - there were those who’d argue she’d fallen further than Lamb - but the only enemy she’d made on the way was her own younger self.

Information is a tart - information is anybody’s. It reveals as much about those who impart it as it teaches those who hear. Because information, ever the slut, swings both ways. False information - if you know it’s false - tells you half as much again as the real thing, because it tells you what the other feller thinks you don’t know, while real information, the copper-bottomed truth, is worth its weight in fairy-dust. When you have a source of real information, you ought to forsake all others and snuggle down with it for good. Even though it’ll never work out, because information, first, last and always, is a tart.

I’ve gone about these novellas in the wrong order, having read The Catch first, now The Drop and will read The List last! Oh well, they are still an absolute delight to read.

Mick Herron is a master of his craft, and this story about ‘retired assets’ and their minders, or ‘milkmen’ is a shining example. I’m not usually a fan of ‘spy’ or ‘spook’ stories, but Herron develops his character so that you, dear reader, care very much what happens to them.

John Butcher is not in a happy place, so when one of his charges claims to have witnessed ‘a drop’ he doesn’t think much of it. But his tentative enquiries have unfortunate results.

What a gem of a book!

This is exquisite! If you are familiar with Mick Herron’s Slough House series, then you know how clever his writing is. The beauty of a novella, a mere 105 pages, is that the author cannot waste a word, and Herron doesn’t. Every sentence is deliberate: dense and witty and sometimes melancholy.
John Bachelor is a man who has fallen on very hard times, and you desperately hope that things will not get worse for him - but they do! My husband and I both read The Catch and keep referring back to it. For a tiny book, it packs an emotional punch. Highly recommended.

Great story. Great characters. Great audio book! I will continue to listen to this series. Highly recommended.