If we get the heroes we deserve, then Jackson Lamb, foul-mouthed and slovenly ringmaster of a circus of failed spies, is truly the man for our times. With Clown Town (Baskerville), the ninth book in Mick Herron’s state-of-the-nation satire/thriller mashup series, hitting the bestseller lists, and the fifth series of the Slow Horses TV adaptation streaming, this has been the author’s year. In the latest outing, Lamb and his stable of “losers, misfits and boozers” are well up to the mark as secrets about an IRA double agent threaten to come to light, exposing the seamier side of state security for a story of loyalty and betrayal.
Complicity and culpability, as well as class and professional ethics, are the subjects of Denise Mina’s The Good Liar (Harvill). When the creator of a revolutionary blood splatter probability scale realises that its flaws may have led to an unsafe conviction, she has to decide what to do about it. Tense and powerful, this is a sobering reminder of how the human element can undermine an apparently objective scientific method. The Confessions by Paul Bradley Carr (Faber) ventures into similar territory to terrifying effect. It takes place in an all-too-plausible future in which the world has become reliant on a decision-making algorithm; things go catastrophically awry when the AI tool begins to feel remorse for some of its decisions, and carnage results.
