Slough House, by Mick Herron

The head of MI5, First Desk Diana Taverner, has sold what remains of her soul to the diabolical powermonger Peter Judd in order to gain resources and freedom from her political masters. This inadvertently (for a change) puts the current and former slow horses of Slough House at great risk as they become targets in a war of revenge. She is forced into an unholy alliance with Jackson Lamb, the wily but execrable chief of the secret service dumping ground, in order to save all their bacon. Judd, as ever, has his own agenda and is sponsoring Britain’s version of MAGA, a la Steve Bannon. He is not about to let Taverner wriggle free of his clutches. In the face of death the slow horses find themselves dealing with a resurrection, which has been flagged in a previous book but still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. This tight, tense read again puts favourites in the firing line and leaves the fate of heroes and villains alike hanging in the balance until the next tale. Herron has also written a smartly sardonic Christmas short story that follows this novel and is therefore better read after it, as the timelines get confusing and it contains spoilers.