OUTSIDE
Waterproof protocol” Whelan himself set up. If de Greer did come to grief, after all, the most obvious suspect is none other than Diana Taverner, who holds down the First Desk at MI5. Diana, for her part, is busy trying to figure out the agenda of her smirking Russian counterpart, Vassily Rasnokov, who’s popped up in London from behind a false identity that wouldn’t have fooled a child but fooled the spooks who were supposed to be following him. Although Diana takes time out for a meeting with her regular sparring partner, Slough House zookeeper Jackson Lamb, the problems here go far beyond Lamb’s slow horses, as she realizes when someone does trigger the Candlestub protocol, transforming her instantly from the head of MI5 into a woman on the run. Once again, Herron summons a witches’ brew of double talk, petty rivalries, and professional paranoia, this time less John le Carré than George V. Higgins, to demonstrate that any talk of the intelligence community outside Slough House is nothing but an oxymoron. More proof that the enemies of the state are no more than a pretext for infighting to the death among the agencies.
Jónasson, Ragnar Minotaur (352 pp.) $27.99 | May 24, 2022 978-1-2508-3345-7 The ptarmigan hunt four old friends have planned for a winter weekend in the wilds of eastern Iceland goes south when the weather turns on them and they turn on each other. Three of the four—actor Daníel, attorney Gunnlaugur, and Helena, an engineer for a tech startup—would have no business traipsing around in the snow under any circumstances if it weren’t for the fourth, Ármann, a travel guide with a checkered past as a drug user–turneddealer whose underworld connections in Denmark might well have killed him if Helena hadn’t ridden to the rescue. Once an unexpected snowstorm sends them searching desperately for a hut they can shelter in, it’s gradually revealed that the others all have secrets of their own. Daníel can’t stop lying about the fact that his career in London has never taken off. Helena’s still mourning Víkingur, the ex who died under suspicious circumstances five years ago. And Gunnlaugur is an alcoholic rapist whose two years on the wagon come to an end inside the hut, where the refuge they’ve sought swiftly turns nightmarish with the discovery of an armed stranger inside. No matter what they do, the man won’t move, won’t talk, and won’t put down his gun even when the group falls asleep. Soft-pedaling the supernatural trappings of The Girl Who Died (2021), Jónasson presents the weekend getaway as an excruciatingly slow-motion avalanche in which it’s obvious from the beginning, as Helene says, that “something’s got to die before we finish this trip”; the only questions are who, how many, under what circumstances, and at whose hands. A shivery delight. It’s nice that the Icelandic Tourist Board hasn’t paid Jónasson to quit publishing.
LITTLE FOXES TOOK UP MATCHES
Kazbek, Katya Tin House (350 pp.) $26.95 | April 5, 2022 978-1-953534-02-6
Folklore enlivens a queer coming-ofage story set in 1990s Russia. Mitya is born in the Soviet Union, but by the time he’s 5, the USSR is dissolved and the adults in his life—his parents, Yelena and Dmitriy, his grandmother Alyssa, and his cousin Vovka, a Chechen War veteran—see their lives and livelihoods change with the nation. Likewise, Mitya’s understanding of himself and the world transforms as he enters adolescence. The defining moment of Mitya’s infancy is one of potential catastrophe: While babysitting, Alyssa accidentally drops an 18
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15 february 2022
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fiction
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kirkus.com
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