Whether because they’re alcoholics, drug addicts, gamblers or simply responsible for some almighty cock-up or other, and are forced to do menial tasks in the hope that they resign out of boredom.
It doesn’t exist except in the ingenious mind of Mick Herron (at least, for the sake of our national security, I hope it doesn’t). But to Herron’s readers it has come to seem as real as their own offices.
Its inhabitants are now as familiar as our own co-workers and probably, despite their numerous personality deficiencies, a lot more loveable.
The fifth entry in the series begins with somebody attempting to run over the resident tech geek, the awful Roddy Ho, the finest example of Herron’s ability to make a supremely entertaining character out of somebody you couldn’t bear to talk to for 30 seconds in real life.
Ho’s mishap is tied up with a terrorist plot to kill a populist politician and the Slough House spooks end up once again attempting to thwart the assassination. Of course, they make matters 10 times worse, as Herron orchestrates chaos with all the aplomb of John Cleese in his Fawlty Towers pomp.
The whole debacle is punctuated by the demonic wisecracks of Slough House’s monstrous bully of a boss, the fat, flatulent, foul-mouthed Jackson Lamb. If political incorrectness was always this funny, it would never have gone out of fashion.
But Herron’s comic brilliance should not overshadow the fact that his books are frequently thrilling, often thought-provoking, and sometimes moving and even inspiring.
Reading one of Herron’s worst books would be the highlight of my month and London Rules is one of his best.