Bad Actors

The Instant #1 Sunday Times Bestseller

By: Mick Herron

Narrated by: Sean Barrett

*Now an award-winning Apple TV+ series starring Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Jack Lowden*

The eighth book in the critically acclaimed and bestselling Slough House THRILLER series by Mick Herron, who has been called 'Britain's finest living thriller writer' [Sunday Express]

'Herron is at the summit of a new golden age of spy fiction' Sunday Times

POLITICS IS A DANGEROUS GAME

In MI5 a scandal is brewing and there are bad actors everywhere.

A key member of a Downing Street think-tank has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, one-time First Desk of MI5's Regent's Park, is tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads straight back to Regent's Park HQ itself, with its chief, Diana Taverner, as prime suspect. Meanwhile her Russian counterpart has unexpectedly shown up in London but has slipped under MI5's radar.

Over at Slough House, the home for demoted and embittered spies, the slow horses are doing what they do best: adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation.

In a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing is the norm, bad actors are bending the rules for their own gain. If the slow horses want to change the script, they'll need to get their own act together before the final curtain.

'Herron has certainly devised the most completely realised espionage universe since that peopled by George Smiley' The Times

'Herron's novels are genuinely thrilling' Daily Telegraph

'Britain's finest living thriller writer' Sunday Express

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton©2022 Mick Herron

Critic reviews

Bad Actors took a big step into literary excellence. The dazzling, Conrad-like structure turned an entertainment into a major literary statement (Philip Hensher)

Bad Actors is both thriller and anti-thriller: subverting and denying the treats you expect from the genre, but then providing them in a twisted form after all

Jackson Lamb is the greatest literary creation of this century . . . Herron is master of the metaphor and his extraordinarily well-plotted books are always centred on real-life events (Nikki May)

An ingeniously structured caper

Satire at its best along with him being one of the best spy thriller writers around

Britain's finest contemporary thriller series

There's no doubting Herron's intelligence. Will he prove to be our age's Anthony Trollope? . . . Few other contemporary thrillers, at any event, would have the confidence to make a plot point of the post-Brexit residency status of some of Lazio's hardcore Curva Nord football fans . . . [Bad Actors] deserves the bouquets that will come its way, and Herron is building a series with lasting resonance. We'll miss the show when some day he decides to bring the curtain down

A pitch-perfect espionage thriller and a double delight for political nerds as it thrusts the slow horses into a Russian intelligence operation in Westminster . . . What Bad Actors shows is that he has inherited le Carré's mantle for using the thriller to dissect the times in which he lives . . . Bad Actors is his most piquant political satire, dripping with tart observations about our unruly rulers (Tim Shipman)

Anyone who enjoys Mick Herron's masterful political satires and fantastical spy fiction must be afraid that one day his powers of invention will falter. It hasn't happened yet. Bad Actors is as good as ever . . . This novel contains some serious, hard-hitting emotions alongside the wit, neat plotting, great action scenes, beautiful descriptions and wonderful schoolboy smut (placed in the mouth of Lamb) we have come to associate with Herron's writing. This is entertainment of the highest class

This highly topical, beautifully written, indecently entertaining book maintains the impeccably high standards Herron has set for this essential series

What spurs me to keep reading each new instalment is Herron's absurdist voice, which could devolve into cheap cynicism but never does

Written with the gifted Herron's typical wit, and with Lamb's personality pervading every page, this is the antithesis of the discreet George Smiley

One of the best entries in an outstanding series

What we're reading

It's beautifully written with a satisfyingly complex plot and an explosive finale

Great Narration Prefect

Enjoyable story and the Narration is prefect for the text. Brings the spy world alive

As always, Herron writes a ripper spook novel

Different to most Slow Horses novels … but the usual suspects are here, outdoing themselves as always

Well worth the asking price.

The book is the same quality I have come to expect from this talented author. This particular book felt like a bridging storyline to something bigger, which I can't wait for.

What happened ?!

I’ve read all the Slow Horses … they were brilliant, but this book
failed to get traction.
I was irritated by the narrator’s monotone , unusual for Barrett maybe he was bored to tears too.
Skip this one