I'm not sure how much this adds to the series so far, but it could be it's laying important groundwork for later. It was just okay on its own. ( )

A Slow Horse Novella
Review of the Recorded Books audiobook edition (July 12, 2019) of the original Soho Crime eBook (January 27, 2015)

The Slough House aka 'Slow Horses' novellas are running a parallel plot to the full novels of the series. I'd previously read The List (#2.5 2015) and The Marylebone Drop aka The Drop (#5.5 2018). These are currently followed by The Catch (#6.5 2020). I decided to re-read The List in an audiobook edition as a refresher prior to reading the next full novel in the series Real Tigers (#3 from 2016).

The main characters of the series make only cameo appearances in the novellas. The MI5 Regent's Park Head Office Second Desk Diana Taverner and Slough House's Jackson Lamb are the main regular series characters who appear in The List.

I'm keeping a record here of most of the plot as I'll need a refresher when I get to the later novels and novellas of the series. So I've blocked this section as:

Dieter Hess, a retired defector from East Germany during the Cold War is discovered dead in his flat by milkman John Bachelor during his milk-run, his assigned regular task of checking up on retired spies for the Security Service. When the flat is swept in a cleanup operation, a list of an apparent spy network and an undisclosed bank account of Hess's is discovered. The suspicion is that Hess was running a network for the current German Intelligence Service, the BND.

Diana Taverner threatens Bachelor with a downgrading to the dead end of Slough House due to his having missed Hess's apparent deception. The list however is discovered to contain mostly elderly and retired and unimportant characters except for an up and coming government worker named Hanna Weiss.

Taverner and Bachelor arrange to turn suspected agent Hanna Weiss into a double in order to feed future disinformation to the Germans. Jackson Lamb has his doubts though and wonders if perhaps the entire reason for Hess's extra payments was to keep the list hidden in his flat in order to be discovered at his passing whereupon the BND would be able to insert a triple agent into Britain.

As the story ends, Hanna Weiss is travelling on the tube and an elderly man in a white raincoat carrying a copy of Private Eye, leans into her ear and whispers "Wir sind so stolz auf dich Hanna." (German: We are so proud of you Hanna.)


The narration by the series regular reader [author:Gerard Doyle|12434] was excellent as always.

Trivia and Link
Dieter Hess was listening to the "Für Alina" CD by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt before he died. This was enough to add The List to the GR Listopia of Books with Fictional Characters Who Love Arvo Pärt. ( )

This novella from one of my favourite series Slough House was a perfect book to fill a short reading time. When Diana Taverner, known on the quiet as Lady Di, discovered that recently deceased spy Dieter Hess had a secret bank account she had a blistering talk with his handler, John Bachelor. To avoid the complete ruination of his career - and pension - Bachelor searched Hess' house for evidence - and found a coded list of ten names. He tasks a rookie to find out more. And that could have been his biggest mistake. A great story, displaying Herron's excellent writing skills. As always, he provides a funny, well-crafted, literate story. ( )

Good beginning - I wonder if we will ever learn how it ends. ( )

Short and minor novella in the Slough Horses series, which only peripherally involves the inhabitants of Slough House. When an MI5 "asset" who long before passed on information from East Germany dies of natural causes, an unknown bank account turns up. Where did the money come from, and was the asset compromised? The result of the investigation and the speculation at the end is interesting and probably more realistic than the two Slough House novels I have read so far--but far less entertaining. ( )