Reconstruction - Mick Herron

 Reconstruction (2008) is Mick Herron before Slough House.   Immediately before - so close on Jackson Lamb;s heels we can almost smell his fags.   But tt's not Slough House and it's not about Slow Horses.   Instead it's about how a Secret Service forensic accountant Ben Whistler ends up negotiating a hostage situation in Oxford in, of all places, a pre-school nursery.

The Dogs are here, and have clearly messed up.   The Dogs are unleashed because one of Ben's colleagues, Miro Weiss, has gone missing.   Along with quarter of a billion pounds syphoned off from the money that was supposed to be reconstructing Iraq.   Or, more exactly, from the funds that had already been syphoned off by the crooks who were contracted and sub-contracted to do something about the mess Bush and Blair had created in Iraq.   Miro has vanished without trace, which was not surprising, given that he had largely lived without trace.   Ben Whistler worked in the same office but barely knew him.   Then, out of the blue, Miro's boyfiend, Jaime Segura, rings the SIS asking for Ben Whistler.

The Dogs are unleashed: Bad Sam Chapman and Neil Ashton.   It's supposed to be a simple containment exerice.  The Queens of the Database know exactly where in London Jaime is.   All Bad Sam and his oppo have to do is ... not let Jaime see them coming.   But Jaime does see them coming.   He gives them the slip and hops on a bus that happens to be heading for Oxford.   Bad Sam and Ashton, naturally a little put out, track him to a layby just outside the city of sleeping spires.   Jaime runs.   Ashton decamps from the car and gives chase.   Ashton has a gun, which is news to his partner Sam.   It's a commuter road, rush hour.   Ashton slips, falls into the road and under a car.   The gun goes flying.   Jaime grabs it and flees.   The next thing we know he's wandering round South Oxford asking, not for Ben Whistler but The Lady.

Before you know it he's in the reception class annexe with a pair of toddler twins, two ladies, the guilty father of the twins and an unofficial SIS firearm.   Outside, the media is massing.   Since Bad Sam has gone off piste on business of his own, there's only one answer.   Send in Ben Whistler.

It takes a chapter to get used to how different Reconstruction is from the better known Herron of today.   In many ways it is better than the very latest Herron output because in Reconstruction he is still experimenting, still perfecting his authorial voice.   I ended up thoroughly loving it.   It bursts with twists and subplots and the characters are wonderfully diverse.   I am enthused.