Mick Herron goes to the top of my list for master story
tellers of thrillers about spies
and the British Intelligence. His savvy is sensational
and I wonder if in another life
he was a "spook".
Tom Bettany used to be a M15 agent but needed to leave the
Service because his wife,
Hannah, was diagnosed with brain cancer. A rocky
relationship with his son, Liam,
deteriorated when she died and they became estranged.
Bettany traveled to France and did
manual work, presently butchering cows. When a telephone
call told him that Liam had
been killed in a fall from his balcony while under the
influence of drugs, he returned to
London immediately.
After the funeral Bettany meets Felicity "Flea" Pointer,
who called Bettany with the news
of Liam's death. She and Liam were friends and co-workers
at The Lunch Box, a business
dealing with gaming. "Flea" admitted that she and Liam
occasionally used drugs together.
Their choice was the newest "in" blend of pot known as
Muskrat. She was aware of the
relationship between father and son, as Liam talked to her
about it on occasion.
Vincent Driscoll,is the wealthy founder and game designer
of SHADES He was Liam's
employer. He told Bettany that the reason he hired Liam
was because he was the first
person to break the game code of that game. Working on
SHADES 2, he believed he would
make another fortune on his new game.
It is not long until word is out that Bettany is back and
Dame Ingrid Tearney, Director
at M15 has him in her sights. She is overly ambitious
with an extraordinary desire for
success, power and money at any expense. She steers an
underling, J.K. Coe to meet
Bettany and plants information that Bettany is seeking.
Martin Saar is the kingpin and
leading distributor of Muskrat in the area and he is also
a member of the Russian Maffia.
NOBODY WALKS is an exciting revenge thriller filled with
action, lots of it. Shady and
dangerous characters, filled with intrigue and surprises
that keep Bettany baffled and
busy for awhile. He perseveres and soon figures out the
reason Liam died and who was
responsible for his death. I definitely see his
reappearance in a sequel to this book.
I will be first on line to enjoy. Well done, Mick.
Set in the same fictional London as his CWA Gold Dagger
Award-winning Slough House series, Mick Herron now
introduces Tom Bettany, an ex-spook with a violent past and
only one thing to live for: Avenging his son’s death.
Tom Bettany is working at a meat processing plant in France
when he gets a voicemail from an Englishwoman he doesn't
know telling him that his estranged 26-year-old son is
dead—Liam Bettany fell from his London balcony, where he was
smoking dope.
Now for the first time since he cut all ties years ago,
Bettany returns home to London to find out the truth about
his son's death. Maybe it’s the guilt he feels about losing
touch with his son that’s gnawing at him, or maybe he’s
actually put his finger on a labyrinthine plot, but either
way he’ll get to the bottom of the tragedy, no matter whose
feathers he has to ruffle. But more than a few people are
interested to hear Bettany is back in town, from
incarcerated mob bosses to those in the highest echelons of
MI5. He might have thought he'd left it all behind when he
first skipped town, but nobody really just walks away.
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