{"product_id":"nobody-walks-isbn-9781616956196","title":"Nobody Walks","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn this standalone spy thriller, Mick Herron, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of \u003ci\u003eSlow Horses\u003c\/i\u003e, brings to life a man with a violent past and only one thing to live for: Avenging his son's death.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTom Bettany is working at a meat processing plant in France when he gets a voicemail from an Englishwoman he doesn’t know telling him that his estranged 26-year-old son is dead—Liam Bettany fell from his London balcony, where he was smoking pot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow for the first time since he cut all ties years ago, Bettany returns home to London to find out the truth about his son’s death. Maybe it’s the guilt he feels about losing touch with Liam that’s gnawing at him, or maybe he’s actually put his finger on a labyrinthine plot, but either way he’ll get to the bottom of the tragedy, no matter whose feathers he has to ruffle. But more than a few people are interested to hear Bettany is back in town, from incarcerated mob bosses to those in the highest echelons of MI5. He might have thought he’d left it all behind when he first skipped town, but nobody ever really walks away.\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eNobody Walks\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e2015 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award Shortlist\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNancy Pearl \"Best Reads\" of 2015\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e Best Crime Novel of 2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e's \"101 Best Crime Novels of the Last Decade\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Fast-moving and deeply cynical, yet thoroughly heartfelt, this is a first-rate modern thriller.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Daily Mail\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Blackly comic.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Sunday Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"English author Mick Herron writes thrillers that are smart in the places that count. Smart prose, smart plotting.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Toronto Star\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Enough suspense and action to keep thriller fans happy but it also has a strong psychological component. The final revelation in this story will it will knock you backwards.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Daily Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A deep evocation of the consequences of both violence and revenge.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] superb thriller . . . Herron may be the most literate, and slyest, thriller writer in English today.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, STARRED Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Herron’s  remarkable novel has enough suspense, action, and deductive dazzlement  to keep genre fans happy. But be warned: these are deep waters, and this  is not nodding-off, night-table reading.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e─\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Herron  strips his revenge story to the bone, paring away unnecessary  characters, episodes, speeches and gestures to produce a violent little  elegy that grows both more clever and more sour as it hurtles along.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The  Brits seem to have a lock on clapped-out intelligence agents, and this  savvy literary stand-alone by the author of the 2013 Crime Writers’  Association Gold Dagger–winning \u003ci\u003eDead Lions\u003c\/i\u003e is an affectionate nod to the likes of John le Carré.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e─Library Journal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Nobody Walks\u003c\/i\u003e is a very different kind of thriller: more Richard Stark than John Le Carre. It’s stripped down and raw; a satisfying, immersive thriller, bold and brutal in its simplicity.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003ePages \u0026amp; Pages Books, Australia\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Herron] writes with uncommon grace about a man who has no illusions.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Reviewing the Evidence\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] beautiful, bleak novel.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Criminal Element\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] complex character-driven thriller.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Stop! You're Killing Me\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Tough and melancholy—a story of remorse and revenge that asks if it is ever too late for a man to make up the lost years.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Life Is Story\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"This is a more human story—a tragedy, actually—and Bettany is given no easy ride.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Crime Fiction Lover\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Smartly written with biting British wit.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Fresh Fiction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for DEAD LIONS\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE 2013 CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR BEST CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA BBC FRONT ROW BEST CRIME NOVEL OF 2013\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eTIMES \u003c\/i\u003eCRIME AND THRILLER BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eSUNDAY TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eTOP 50 CRIME AND THRILLER BOOK OF THE PAST 5 YEARS\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Smart, sharp British wit at its finest. A uniquely brilliant take on the British spy novel.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─Cara Black,\u003ci\u003e New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eMurder Below Montparnasse\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Funny, clever . . . Genuinely thrilling. The novel is equally noteworthy for its often lyrical prose.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Delightful . . . with a dry humor reminiscent of Greene and Waugh.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e, Best Thrillers and Crime Novels of the Past 5 Years\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A great romp.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e─\u003c\/i\u003eJeff Park, BBC Front Row\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Clever and funny.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e─\u003c\/i\u003eThe Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Herron delivers unbeatable entertainment for thriller fans.”\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] wickedly clever send-up of the classic British spy novel.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─Crime Writers' Association\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“If  you like your suspense novels told with a smart dash of wit and  sarcasm, filled with lots of twists and turns, Herron's your man.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─Shelf Awareness\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eMick Herron\u003c\/b\u003e is a British novelist and short story writer who was born in Newcastle and studied English at Oxford. He is the author of the Slough House espionage series, four Oxford mysteries, and several standalone novels. His work has won the CWA Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement in Crime Writing, the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, and the Ellery Queen Readers Award, and been nominated for the Macavity, Barry, Shamus, and Theakstons Novel of the Year Awards. He currently lives in Oxford and writes full-time.\u003cb\u003e1.1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003eThe news had come hundreds of miles to sit waiting for days in a mislaid phone. And there it lingered like a moth in a box, weightless, and aching for the light.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003eThe street cleaners’ lorry woke Bettany. It was 4:25 am. He washed at the sink, dressed, turned the bed’s thin mattress, and rolled his sleeping bag into a tight package he leaned upright in a corner. 4:32.\u003cbr\u003e             Locking the door was an act of faith or satire—the lock would barely withstand a rattle—but the room wouldn’t be empty long, because someone else used it during the day. Bettany hadn’t met him, but they’d reached an accommodation. The daytime occupant respected Bettany’s possessions—his toothbrush, his sleeping bag, the dog-eared copy of \u003ci\u003eDubliners\u003c\/i\u003e he’d found on a bus—and in return Bettany left untouched the clothing that hung from a hook on the door, three shirts and a pair of khakis.\u003cbr\u003e             His own spare clothing he kept in a duffel bag in a locker at the sheds. Passport and wallet he carried in a security belt with his mobile, until that got lost or stolen.\u003cbr\u003e             Outside was February cold, quiet enough that he could hear water rinsing the sewers. A bus grumbled past, windows fogged. Bettany nodded to the whore on the corner, whose territory was bounded by two streetlights. She was Senegalese, pre-op, currently a redhead, and he’d bought her a drink one night, God knew why. They had exile in common, but little else. Bettany’s French remained undistinguished, and the hooker’s English didn’t lend itself to small talk.\u003cbr\u003e             A taste of the sea hung in the air. This would burn off later, and be replaced by urban flavours.\u003cbr\u003e             He caught the next bus, a twenty-minute ride to the top of a lane which fell from the main road like an afterthought, and as he trudged downhill a truck passed, horn blaring, its headlights yellowing the sheds ahead, which were barn-sized constructions behind wire-topped fences. A wooden sign hung lopsided from the gates, one of its tethering chains longer than the other. The words were faded by weather. Bettany had never been able to make them out.\u003cbr\u003e             Audible now, the sound of cattle in distress.\u003cbr\u003e             He was waved through and fetched his apron from the locker room. A group of men were smoking by the door, and one grunted his name.\u003cbr\u003e             “Tonton.”\u003cbr\u003e             What they called him, for reasons lost in the mist of months.\u003cbr\u003e             He knotted his apron, which was stained so thick with blood and grease it felt plastic, and fumbled his gloves on.\u003cbr\u003e             Out in the yard the truck was impatient, its exhaust fumes spoiling out in thick black ropes. The noise from the nearest shed was mechanical, mostly, and its smells metallic and full of fear. Behind Bettany men stamped their cigarettes out and hawked noisily. Refrigerated air whispered from the truck’s dropped tailgate.\u003cbr\u003e             Bettany’s role wasn’t complicated. Lorries arrived bearing cattle and the cattle were fed into the sheds. What came out was meat, which was then ferried away in different lorries. Bettany’s job, and that of his companions, was to carry the meat to the lorries. This not only required no thought, it demanded thought’s absence. \u003cbr\u003e             At day’s end he’d hose down the yard, a task he performed with grim diligence, meticulously blasting every scrap of matter down the drains.\u003cbr\u003e             He switched off, and the working day took over. This was measured in a familiar series of aches and smells and sounds, the same actions repeated with minor variations, while blurred memories nagged him uninvited, moments which had seemed unexceptional at the time, but had persisted. A woman in a café, regarding him with what might have been interest, might have been contempt. An evening at the track with Majeed, who was the nearest he’d made to a friend, though he hadn’t made enemies. He didn’t think he’d made enemies.\u003cbr\u003e             Thoughts became rituals in themselves. You plodded the same course over and over, like any dumb beast or wind-up toy.\u003cbr\u003e             At about the time citizens would be leaving their homes in clean shirts Bettany stopped for coffee, pitch black in a polystyrene cup. He ate a hunk of bread wrapped round cheese, leaning against the fence and watching grey weather arrive, heading inland. \u003cbr\u003e             From three metres’ distance Majeed detached himself from a group similarly occupied.\u003cbr\u003e             “Hey, Tonton. You lose your mobile?”\u003cbr\u003e             It spun through the air. He caught it one-handed.\u003cbr\u003e             “\u003ci\u003eOu?\u003c\/i\u003e”\u003cbr\u003e             “\u003ci\u003eLa Girondelle\u003c\/i\u003e.”\u003cbr\u003e             The bar at the track. He was surprised to see it again, though the reason why wasn’t long in coming.\u003cbr\u003e             “\u003ci\u003eC’est de la merde\u003c\/i\u003e. Not worth stealing.”\u003cbr\u003e             Bettany gave no argument.\u003cbr\u003e             The piece of shit, not worth stealing, was barely worth ringing either, though still had a flicker of charge. Four missed calls in nine days. Two were local numbers and hadn’t left messages. The others were from England, unfamiliar streams of digits. Odds were they were cold calls, checking out his inclinations vis-à-vis internet banking or double-glazing. He finished his coffee undecided whether to listen or delete, then found his thumb resolving the issue of its own accord, scrolling to his voicemail number, pressing play.\u003cbr\u003e             “Yes, this is Detective Sergeant Welles, speaking from Hoxton police station. Er, London. I’m trying to reach a Mr. Thomas Bettany? If you could give me a ring at your earliest convenience. It’s a matter of some importance.” He recited a number slowly enough that Bettany caught it first time.\u003cbr\u003e             His mouth was dry. The bread, the cheese, grew lumpy in his stomach.\u003cbr\u003e             The second voice was less measured.\u003cbr\u003e             “Mr. Bettany? Liam’s father?” It was a girl, or young woman. “My name’s Flea, Felicity Pointer? I’m calling about Liam . . . Mr. Bettany, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.”\u003cbr\u003e             She sounded sorry.\u003cbr\u003e             “There’s been an accident. Liam—I’m sorry, Mr. Bettany. Liam died.”\u003cbr\u003e             Either she paused a long while or the recorded silence dragged itself out in slow motion, eating up his pre-paid minutes.\u003cbr\u003e             “I’m sorry.”\u003cbr\u003e             “Message ends. To hear the message envelope, press One. To save the—”\u003cbr\u003e             He killed the robot voice.\u003cbr\u003e             Nearby, Majeed was halfway through a story, dropping into English when French wasn’t obscene enough. Bettany could hear the creaking of a trolley’s metal wheels, a chain scraping over a beam. Another lorry trundled down the lane, its grille broad, an American model. Already details were stacking up. More blurred snapshots he’d flick through in future days, always associated with the news just heard.\u003cbr\u003e             He reached for the back of his neck, and untied his apron.\u003cbr\u003e             “Tonton?”\u003cbr\u003e             He dropped it to the ground.\u003cbr\u003e             “\u003ci\u003eOu vas-tu?\u003c\/i\u003e”\u003cbr\u003e             Bettany fetched his duffel from the locker.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e1.2\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The crematorium was single-storey, stucco-clad, with a high chimney. On one side creeping plants swarmed a cane trellis that bordered an array of small gardens divided by hedges. Japanese stones neighboured ornamental ponds and bonsaid trees peered from terracotta pots. Other patches echoed formal English styles, orchards, terraced rosebeds, in any of which you might strew the ashes of the departed, supposing the deceased had expressed a preference.\u003cbr\u003e             Bettany imagined Liam saying \u003ci\u003eWhen I’m dead, scatter me on a Japanese garden. Not in actual Japan. Just anywhere handy\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e             A mild English winter was turning chill, but all that remained of the morning’s frost was a damp smudge on the pavements. The imprints of vanished leaves were stamped there too, like the work of a graffiti artist who’d run out of things to say.\u003cbr\u003e             Bettany’s once-blond shaggy hair was now streaked grey, like his ragged beard, and while his eyes were strikingly blue, their expression was vague. His hands, large and raw, were jammed in the pockets of a cheap raincoat, and he rocked slightly on feet cased in work-boots that had seen better days. Under the coat he wore jeans, a long-sleeved crew-neck tee and a zippered top. These were the spare clothes from his duffel bag, but three days’ wear had taken their toll. The duffel itself he’d abandoned in a bin, he couldn’t remember which side of the Channel. For all the hours he’d spent on buses, he’d managed little sleep. His only conversation had been a brief exchange on the ferry, when a French trucker lent him the use of a phone charger.\u003cbr\u003e             His first stop on reaching London had been Hoxton Police Station.\u003cbr\u003e             Detective Sergeant Welles, once located, had been sympathetic.\u003cbr\u003e             “I’m sorry for your loss.”\u003cbr\u003e             Bettany nodded.\u003cbr\u003e             “Nobody seemed to know where you were. But there was an idea you were out of the country. I’m glad you got back in time.”\u003cbr\u003e             Which was how he discovered the cremation was taking place that morning.\u003cbr\u003e             He’d sat in the back row. The chapel of remembrance was quarter-full, most of the congregation Liam’s age, none of them known to him, but an introduction contained a familiar name, Felicity Pointer. Flea, she’d called herself on the phone. She approached the lectern looking twenty-five, twenty-six, brunette and lightly olive-skinned, wearing black of course. Hardly looking at the assembled company, she read a short poem about chimney sweeps, then returned to her seat.\u003cbr\u003e             Watching this, Bettany had barely paid attention to the main object of interest, but looking at it now he realised that what he’d been feeling these past three days was not grief but numbness. A pair of curtains provided the backdrop, and behind them the coffin would soon pass, and there the remains of his only son would be reduced to ash and fragments of bone, to the mess of clinker you’d find in a grate on a winter’s morning. Nothing of substance. And all Bettany could make of it was an all-consuming absence of feeling, as if he was indeed the stranger his son had made of him.\u003cbr\u003e             He rose and slipped out of the door.\u003cbr\u003e             Waiting by the trellis, it struck him that it was seven years since he’d been in London. He supposed he ought to be noticing differences, things being better or worse, but he couldn’t see much had changed. The skyline had altered, with new towers jutting heavenwards from the City, and more poised to sprout everywhere you looked. But that had always been the case. London had never been finished, and never would be. Or not by dint of new construction.\u003cbr\u003e             Seven years since London, three of them in Lyme. Then Hannah had died, and he’d left England. Now Liam had died, and he was back.\u003cbr\u003e             Welles had given him a lift here. There might have been a hidden agenda, pump the father for information, but Bettany had none to offer and the flow had gone the other way. How it had happened, for instance. Up through France, across the choppy Channel, Bettany hadn’t known the how. Of the various possibilities some kind of traffic accident had seemed most likely, Liam driving too fast on a fog-bound stretch of motorway, or a bus mounting the pavement, Liam in the wrong place. He could have called and spared himself conjecture, but that would have been to make imagination fact. Now he learned that there had been no cars involved, no buses. Liam had fallen from the window of his flat.\u003cbr\u003e             “Were you in close contact with your son, Mr. Bettany?”\u003cbr\u003e             “No.”\u003cbr\u003e             “So you wouldn’t know much about his lifestyle?”\u003cbr\u003e             “I don’t even know where he lived.”\u003cbr\u003e             “Not far from here.”\u003cbr\u003e             Which would make it N1. Not somewhere Bettany was familiar with. He gathered it was trendy, if that word was used any more, and if it wasn’t, well then. Cool. Hip. Whatever.\u003cbr\u003e             Had Liam been hip? he wondered. Had Liam been cool? They hadn’t spoken in four years. He couldn’t swear to any aspect of his late son’s life, down to the most basic details. Had be been gay? Vegetarian? A biker? What did he do at weekends, browse secondhand shops, looking for bargain furniture? Or hang around the clubs, looking to score? Bettany didn’t know. And while he could find out, that wouldn’t erase the indelible truth of this particular moment, the one he spent outside the chapel where Liam’s body was being fed into the flames. Here and now, he knew nothing. And still, somehow, felt less.\u003cbr\u003e             Overhead, a stringy scrap of smoke loosed itself from the chimney. Then another. And now here came the rest of it, billowing and scattering, a cloud for only a moment, and then nothing, and nowhere, ever again.","brand":"Soho Crime","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44861478174949,"sku":"NP9781616956196","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781616956196.jpg?v=1767733843","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/nobody-walks-isbn-9781616956196","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}