Nobody Walks

Thomas Bethany is a man with a past who is bent on uncovering the truth behind his estranged son's death. Narrator Gerard Doyle convincingly captures Bethany's world-weary, cautious outlook in this smartly constructed story. Noirish in style, this is an audiobook in which even the "white hats" come strictly in shades of gray. Doyle manages to make Bethany and the other key figures sound simultaneously known and unknowable. The many memorable characters--Bethany himself, the eccentric millionaire game developer who employed Bethany's son, Dame Ingrid Tearney of "The Service," and a whole host of others--are so darkly intriguing and fully dimensional that it's a shame author Mick Herron is calling this a stand-alone novel. These characters and their narrator both deserve an encore. K.W. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Starred review from December 8, 2014
In this superb thriller, CWA Gold Dagger Award–winner Herron returns to the secretive world of British intelligence featured in his two Slough House novels, Slow Horses and Dead Lions. Thomas Bettany, a former undercover specialist who came apart after his wife’s death, is doing menial labor in a European slaughterhouse, estranged from everyone—including his grown son, Liam. When Liam falls to his death from the balcony of his London flat, apparently under the influence of a new drug called muskrat, Bettany returns to England to find out what really happened. His quest leads him to the shadowy Vincent Driscoll, head of the software-design firm Liam worked for, and to the bizarre Dame Ingrid Tearney, head of the Intelligence Service, who is either worried that Bettany will discover something better kept under wraps or else wants Bettany to do some dirty work on her behalf. Well-drawn characters complement plotting that’s convoluted but never opaque or formulaic. Herron may be the most literate, and slyest, thriller writer in English today. Agent: Juliet Burton, Juliet Burton Literary Agency (U.K.)