This is fun - two novellas associated with the Slow Horses of Slough House and Spook Street. John Bachelor is not a Slow Horse - he's not that important. He was always a low grade employee of the Secret Service and now he's a part-timer, working off-site, for peanuts. Bachelor's role is called the milk round. He looks after retired assets, former moles and agents now long retired, on Civil Service pensions, in safe, out-of-the-way accommodation.
Inevitably, old spooks die. And Bachelor finds Dieter Hess dead in his chair, with a book on his lap and music on the CD player. Not a bad way to go, and by no means unexpected. Bachelor arranges the wake. To his total horror, Diana Taverner, second desk at the Park, shows up, wanting a word. Did Hess mention a second source of income? How come Bachelor didn't know about the coded list under the carpet?
Bachelor needs to fix this - fast. It doesn't take him long to figure out the code. It's a list of people with German names. Was Dieter a double? Jackson Lamb soon identifies that problem. But one of the names is more interesting than others. A young woman, Hannah Weiss, living in England.
That's The List. The Drop opens with another of Bachelor's charges, Solomon Dortmund, witnessing an Old School 'drop' take place right in front of him in his favourite cafe. He reports this to Bachelor, who shies away from reporting it to Lady Di. Frankly, he'd rather she'd forgotten his existence, especially in his somewhat reduced circumstances. But Solomon managed to get the name of the man making the drop out of a waiter and Bachelor asks a casual acquaintance of his at the Park to run the name. All manner of chaos ensues as the snow starts to blanket London.
Herron really is on top of his form. The clever thing here is the linkage of the two novellas. Neither is sufficient for a novel, together they very nearly are. And the linkage allows us the time to know more about the characters. I hope we meet some of them again.
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