Soho Crime

May Book Club Read: Slow Horses

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Join us in May for our book club read of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses, the first in his series about MI5 agents who have made some epic fails.  We’ll meet in person on Sunday, May 22 at 2 p.m. or via zoom on Wednesday. May 25, at 7 p.m.   Email us at store@auntagathas.com or message us on facebook for details.

Here’s the publisher’s description of Slow Horses (now an excellent TV series): London, England: Slough House is where the washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated here. Maybe they messed up an op badly and can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they all have in common, though, is they all want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another. read more

James R. Benn: Road of Bones

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This book will be published on September 7.

For new readers, the Billy Boyle books are set during WWII and feature an army captain, Billy, who investigates the murders that occur on the edges (or directly inside of) the war. It’s now 1944, and after giving Billy a bit of a break in the last book, The Red Horse, author James Benn plunges Billy and his sidekick Big Mike directly into the action.  Road of Bones begins and ends with two bravura action scenes, a type of writing at which Benn excels.  Action scenes can easily become dull or repetitive (to this crime reading veteran, anyway), but Benn is specific, descriptive in a concise way, and the pacing of his action scenes is perfection.  The more I read, the more I think pacing is all, and Benn has the gift. read more