On the day terrorists kill a dozen innocents in a village that dates to medieval times, someone tries to run down Slough Houses's own Roddy Ho. Although all wonder if they'd have preferred his demise, they recognize it as a threat to them all, and they begin to tail him. And lo and behold, a second attempt is made at Ho's house and Lamb saves the day. MI5 determines that whoever attacked Ho was behind the Abbotsford bombing. Lamb realizes that the terrorists are following an old MI-5 template for destabilizing hostile nations, and if Ho is somehow part of a leak, Slough House could be in trouble. As the next step in the secret plan is to assassinate a populist politician, the slow horses divide up to keep an eye on the two likeliest candidates. Tragically, the newest slow horse, JK Coe, inadvertently kills one of the targets. When the slow horses capture the girlfriend to whom Ho leaked the information, they and MI5 headquarters narrow the search. The bad guys are N. Korean and not the usual suspects. While the security services focus on an attack at the memorial service in London, Shirley Dander and JK Coe head to the site of the first attack and stop the terrorists in their tracks. Once again Headquarters would like to shut down Slough House but cannot do so.
This novel is the second in a series based on a real life hero, Msgr. Hugh O'Flaherty, an Irish diplomat assigned to the Vatican. He and the fictional Contessa Landini manage the 'Choir,' a system of escape for downed airmen, escaped prisoners, and anyone running from the Gestapo. In the spring of 1944, Berlin puts a vast amount of pressure on the local SS officer to end the escape line or suffer the consequences, and he in turn escalates the pressure on all in the Eternal City. Thrust and parry by both sides as the Germans close down streets, raid buildings, and sweep up a few, but there are so many in hiding, the process of moving them out of the city continues until the liberation.
Unlike its predecessor, this book has a stream of consciousness feel to it that I'm not comfortable with. Historians have estimated that O'Flaherty saved 6500 souls from the Nazi's.
