DDR: Bad Actors by Mick Herron

The Good News: I've got 344 pages of Slow Horses action in my 🔥 little 👐.

The Bad News: This is it. No more Slough House novels until Monday, September 8th, 2025. And it's not even the new year yet.

😕 

I'd say I was going to read slowly and savor these last drops of story, but we both know THAT'S not going to happen...so....awaaaay we go.

Day 1 (DDRD 2,615) December 27, 2024

Read to page 132. And though s/he has been referred to a few tumes, there's been no actual appearance if that character. Talk about stretching things out, FF'sS.

The dedication page:

My name is Thomas Paul. I have a kud whose middle name is Matthew. And I have thought if changing my name to Emily.

Coincidence...or something else?

The state of the modern world, with respect to cyber warfare:

"Keyboards were weaponized, trolls emerged from under bridges, and somewhere along the way free elections turned into free-for-alls, as if democracy were a shaggy dog story to which a joke president was the punchline. All those decades of the arms race, and it turned out there was no greater damage you could inflict on a state that ensure it was led by an idiot." (48)

Day 2 (DDRD 2,616) December 28, 2024

Read to page 288.

Earlier...

200 pages in, and still no _____. Though there have been a few more references. Mick is really facking with us on this one. On the other hand, it's been a thrill ride, so no complaints. We'll, one complaint: I've only got 144 more pages of new Slough House in front of me.

And I'm about to knock back some of them.

Later....

Well. 

"Every national panic permitted a government to lace its boots tighter, which was why every government needed a visionary unafraid to sow chaos." (208)

And that is undoubtedly one of the three key reasons the Republican Party has embraced Donald Trump.

Later...

100 pages to go, and _____ has still not appeared. Fackin' hell, mon.

Meanwhile, back in the jungle...

Hmmmm. Internet Archive has

Reconstruction https://archive.org/details/reconstruction0000herr_l6f3/mode/1up

Nobody Walks  https://archive.org/details/nobodywalks0000mick

All the Livelong Day https://archive.org/details/alllivelongdayot0000herr

And the Louisville Free Public Library has

This is What Happened

The Secret Hours

Down Cemetery Road

The Last Voice You Hear

Why We Die

Smoke and Whispers

Dolphin Junction

So it looks like The Complete Mick Herron  is easily within reach. And according to Wikipedia, there's some Slough House related stuff in there....

Day 3 (DDRD 2,617) December 29, 2024

Read to page 344.  The End. And surprise surprise surprise 😮,  _____ never appears. So I suppose we'll have to wait and see what happens in the next book. 9 months from now. 

Meanwhile,  I'm going to steer myself back to some more serious reading. I'm thinking it might be time to finish that last Dostoyevsky novel.