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 sonβs 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
deadβLiam 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 itβs the guilt he feels about losing
touch with his son thatβs gnawing at him, or maybe heβs
actually put his finger on a labyrinthine plot, but either
way heβll 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.
No excerpt available.
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