What to read: outsider spies, a missing wife, and a Scandinavian family detective

Mick Herron. “Slow Horses," Azbuka (16+)

NYT ranking: 9

“Slow Horses” is a spy thriller by British writer Mick Herron and the first book in the Slough House series. The action takes place at a London branch of MI5, where employees who have made professional mistakes or suffered failures are sent. At Slough House, they sort papers and archive files; they are essentially being forced out of service. The department is run by Jackson Lamb, a former Cold War spy who drinks, smokes, insults his subordinates, and at the same time understands well how intelligence works and where its secrets are hidden.

The main character of the novel is River Cartwright. After failing a training exercise, he ends up among the “slow horses” but wants to return to operational work. An opportunity arises when British-Pakistani student Hassan Ahmed is kidnapped by the far-right group “Sons of Albion," which announces that it will cut off his head live in 36 hours. MI5 leadership is in no hurry to involve Slough House, but Cartwright and his colleagues begin their own investigation. Gradually, it becomes clear that the kidnapping is connected to a secret operation of the intelligence service itself and a political game around right-wing groups.

Mick Herron abandons the familiar image of a spy. There is no James Bond or genius George Smiley here. The author shows intelligence as a large organization with internal politics, bureaucracy, personnel conflicts, and employees who make mistakes.

Herron began writing “Slow Horses” in 2008. Initially, he planned a standalone novel, but in the process, he realized he wanted to return to these characters and changed the ending. The series now includes 15 novels and stories. And in 2022, the story was adapted into a television series with Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.

Oyinkan Braithwaite. “My Sister, the Serial Killer," Popcorn Books (18+)

NYT ranking: 6

“My Sister, the Serial Killer” is the debut novel by Nigerian writer Oyinkan Braithwaite, published in 2018. It is a thriller with black humor, a family story, and a crime novel all at once. The action takes place in Lagos. Korede works as a senior nurse and is used to saving her younger sister Ayoola from the consequences of her actions. Ayoola claims she stabbed another boyfriend in self-defense. This is already the third such case. Korede helps cover up the crime, as she has done before, although she understands that her sister may kill again. The situation becomes critical when Ayoola starts dating Tade, a doctor from the hospital whom Korede has long been in love with. Now she must choose between her sister and the person she wants to protect.

The serial killer in the novel does not look like the typical maniac of the genre. Ayoola is beautiful, spoiled, constantly goes on dates, and enjoys the attention of others. The only person who sees manipulation and danger behind this facade is Korede. Thus, the intrigue revolves around how far family loyalty can go.

Braithwaite uses black humor where one would expect tension. Korede discusses ways to wash off blood, the police turn out to be not very effective, and hospital routine coexists with crimes. At the same time, Lagos with its traffic jams, rains, police, and daily life becomes part of the plot. Through the sisters' relationship, the novel also touches on themes of appearance, family trauma, and the transmission of violence from generation to generation.

Cormac McCarthy. “No Country for Old Men," Azbuka (18+)

NYT ranking: 5

Cormac McCarthy wrote “No Country for Old Men” as a screenplay and then turned it into a novel. The book was published in the US on July 19, 2005, and by August it had entered the New York Times bestseller top ten, where it stayed for five weeks. The action takes place in Texas on the Mexican border in 1980, at a time when old notions of order collide with a new, more brutal criminal reality. The plot revolves around Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran and welder. While hunting, he finds several bodies, a load of drugs, and a bag with $2.4 million in the desert. Moss takes the money and then returns to the scene to bring water to a wounded man he left there. The man is already dead, but Moss is met by people who want the money. A chase begins, involving Mexican drug traffickers and hitmen. Among them is Anton Chigurh, a calculating killer who pursues Moss almost without stopping.

The third party to the conflict is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. He investigates the crime and tries to protect Moss but gradually realizes he is dealing with a type of violence he cannot explain. His story adds a second layer to the thriller: Bell is a World War II veteran who has lived for many years with guilt for once leaving his dying squad. Now he perceives what is happening as a sign of the destruction of the order he knows.

McCarthy deliberately made the novel more straightforward than many of his other books. He used short sentences, inserted many dialogues, and minimized digressions. The text at times resembles a screenplay, which is not surprising given its history. At the same time, 13 chapters are given to Bell's internal monologues about violence and moral changes in society. The result is an unusual combination of a dynamic crime plot and a novel about a man who cannot keep up with a changing world.

Stieg Larsson. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," Eksmo (18+)

NYT ranking: 4

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a psychological thriller and the first book in the Millennium trilogy. The novel was first published in Sweden in 2005, after Stieg Larsson's death, and the English translation appeared in 2008. The book quickly became an international bestseller, won several major awards, and was later adapted twice — in Sweden in 2009 and in Hollywood by David Fincher in 2011.

The plot centers on journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who lost a libel case against billionaire Hans-Erik Wennerström. Before prison and leaving his own magazine Millennium, he receives an offer from industrialist Henrik Vanger. Vanger hires Blomkvist under the guise of working on a family chronicle, but the real task is to find out what happened to 16-year-old Harriet Vanger, who disappeared in 1966 during a family gathering on an island. Vanger is convinced that the girl was killed by one of her relatives because every year on his birthday, he receives a pressed flower — the same gift Harriet used to give him during her lifetime. Gradually, the investigation leads Blomkvist to a series of murders of women connected to family members. He is helped by Lisbeth Salander — a young hacker initially hired to investigate the journalist himself. Salander is outwardly withdrawn and socially isolated, possesses exceptional intelligence, is well-versed in computers, and is not inclined to follow rules she considers unfair.

This is a classic family detective story intertwined with a narrative about violence against women, financial crimes, journalistic investigations, and corporate corruption. Larsson builds the intrigue around a large array of documents, old photographs, numbers, and biblical quotes, and the solution gradually emerges. At the same time, the investigation is only part of the story. No less space is occupied by the relationships within the Vanger family and the Blomkvist-Salander duo.

Tana French. “In the Woods," Phantom Press (18+)

NYT ranking: 3

“In the Woods” is Tana French's debut, a detective novel with elements of a psychological thriller, published in 2007. It is the first book in the Dublin Murder Squad series. In 2008, the novel won four awards for best debut novel and first detective, including the Edgar, Barry, Macavity, and Anthony Awards.

The plot is set in a suburb of Dublin. In 1984, three twelve-year-old children go to play in the woods and do not return. The police find only one (Adam). He stands by a tree in a state close to catatonia, his clothes and shoes are covered in blood, and he remembers nothing about what happened. Twenty years later, Adam, now under the name Rob Ryan, becomes a detective in the Dublin Murder Squad. He and his partner Cassie Maddox are assigned to investigate the murder of twelve-year-old Katy Devlin. Her body is found at an archaeological dig site near that same woods.

At the crime scene, traces are found that may relate to the disappearance of the children in 1984. Rob hides his real name from his superiors to avoid being removed from the case and tries to recover lost memories. At the same time, the excavation site is threatened by highway construction, and political connections and corruption are revealed behind the campaign against the road. French builds the plot simultaneously as a police investigation and a psychological drama about memory and trauma. At the center remains the duo of Rob and Cassie; their professional connection gradually becomes personal, and Rob's unresolved trauma begins to harm both the investigation and their friendship.

Dennis Lehane. “Mystic River," Azbuka (18+)

NYT ranking: 2

Dennis Lehane's novel is a hybrid of psychological drama and noir. The book was published in 2001 and became a turning point for the author. Before that, Lehane worked in the niche of hardboiled detective fiction with a series about private investigators. “Mystic River” shifted the focus from procedure to the inner world of the characters. Critics immediately placed the author in the “major league," calling him the heir to Steinbeck and Chandler.

The novel is set in 1975 in a working-class neighborhood of Boston. In front of two friends, Sean and Jimmy, their 11-year-old friend Dave Boyle is put into a car. The men inside claim to be police but actually kidnap the child. Four days later, Dave escapes from captivity, having experienced sexual abuse. The events then jump forward 25 years. Sean Devine has become a homicide detective; Jimmy Marcus is an ex-convict running a small store and controlling the neighborhood's shadow dealings; and Dave Boyle remains a withdrawn man struggling to save his marriage and fight his inner demons. The tragedy mechanism is set in motion when Jimmy's daughter, Katie, is found brutally murdered in a city park. That same night, Dave returns home covered in someone else's blood. The case is assigned to Sean, and the former friends are forced to reunite — but now as suspect, avenger, and investigator.

Lehane explores how the past controls the present. The author deliberately keeps Jimmy, the most dangerous of the three, in the shadows. The reader sees his actions but never fully knows what he has buried within himself to appear as a respectable family man. The suspense is built on a dense, dark description of the environment and the irreversibility of consequences. The resolution of the conflict is as brutal as it is unjust, which fully fits the logic of Lehane's world.

Gillian Flynn. “Gone Girl," Azbuka (16+)

NYT ranking: 1

“Gone Girl” is a psychological thriller with a double bottom. On the fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne disappears. There are signs of a struggle in the house, bloodstains that were clearly wiped away. Her husband Nick is a former journalist. He recently lost his job in New York and moved his wife to a depressed town in Missouri. Nick is the prime suspect. His emotional dryness and the news of Amy's pregnancy only increase the pressure from the police and media. The novel's structure relies on alternating two points of view. Nick describes the investigation in real time; Amy recounts the events of their marriage through a diary. Flynn deliberately makes both narrators unreliable.

In the novel, the author plays with our idea of the concept of “victim.” Amy uses stereotypes about a missing wife as a weapon. She blackmails Nick with pregnancy and forces him to continue the marriage-as-performance. The book turns the search for a criminal into a cold analysis of marriage as a transaction, where images are worth more than reality.

Ekaterina Petrova — literary critic for the online newspaper Realnoe Vremya, host of the Telegram channel «Булочки с маком».