The List is a 2015 novella by Mick Herron, a spy story that ties into Herron’s Jackson Lamb novels and features some of the same characters.
John Bachelor’s slowly sliding towards the end of an uneventful career with MI5, counting the years until his retirement. These days he looks after what's euphemistically known as "the milk round", acting as a handler of sorts for elderly foreign assets who aided British intelligence and later settled in the UK.
They’re all retired - none are under seventy - so it’s mostly just a case of keeping an eye on them and listening to complaints about their pensions.
But when one of his clients dies and secrets come to light, he finds himself with hard questions to answer. Exactly why did Cold War asset Dieter Hess, formerly of the East German Transport Ministry, have a secret British bank account that Bachelor and MI5 knew nothing about? And what else was Hess hiding from them?
However, Bachelor is also, in the scathing words of Jackson Lamb, "third-rate at best", a mediocre and lazy agent. Mostly, he just wants to save his own skin. Or, even better, to find someone else who’s gullible enough to do all the hard work and save it for him.
So what could possibly go wrong?
The first in a series of linked novellas that continues with The Marylebone Drop and The Catch. It also leads into the novel Nobody Walks, the next J.K. Coe story.
The story has no connection to the webcomic The List.
The List contains examples of:
- Bad Boss: Di Taverner, as usual. When Hess’s secret bank account is revealed, not only does she threaten to fire Bachelor for his incompetence and negligence (all of which actually seems reasonable), she threatens to frame him, ensuring he’s implicated in whatever Hess was doing. Unless he can find her some answers to cover her own back, of course.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Bachelor, Taverner and MI5 accept Hess’s 'ghost network' list as genuine and decide to use it, as Bachelor suggested, to run a double agent op against Germany. And by doing so they’re unknowingly bringing German Triple Agent Hannah Weiss into their ranks.
- The Book Cipher: Hess and his German contact have been using Fatherland for this.
- The Cameo: Several characters from the Jackson Lamb series (including Lamb himself) appear, but most are key to the plot (and get a full introduction) whereas River Cartwright gets a cameo with no context for new readers.
- The Chessmaster: The nameless German intelligence agent who designs the false 'ghost network' scheme and inserts Triple Agent Hannah Weiss into MI5.
- Double Agent:
- Dieter Hess. For at least two years he’s been receiving (and hiding) payments from a source outside MI5. How much value they got out of him is a different question - and something that's key to the ending - but it still counts.
- Hannah Weiss. As part of his money-making scam, Hess has already lied to his German handler about recruiting her as a German agent in the UK, which makes her a ready-made double agent when MI5 recruits her. Unfortunately, that was the plan all along. Germany really has recruited her, Hess’s list was bait and they’ve just unknowingly recruited a Triple Agent.
- Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Hannah Weiss. Hess’s ‘ghost network' list, coupled with an initial background check, persuade Bachelor and Taverner that she’d make a great Double Agent for MI5 - Hess's lies mean that Germany already believes she's a spy, so why not exploit that? They don’t realise that they’ve just been outmanoeuvred and tricked into recruiting a real German spy and triple agent.
- The Handler: John Bachelor fulfils this role, but at the least important end of the scale. He now looks after "the milk round", elderly foreign assets who’ve retired to the UK but are no longer important to MI5.
- My Local: Averted. For obvious reasons, the MI5 staff at Regent’s Park have never settled on a regular local pub, so the pub picked for Hess’s wake is one Bachelor’s never been to before.
- New Meat: J.K. Coe, which is why he’s such a good target for Bachelor’s request. He’s still gullible enough to take it at face value.
- Only One Finds It Fun: J.K. is the only person to clap at Molly’s speech, and seemingly the only person who enjoyed it.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Dieter Hess, as the story starts with Bachelor’s discovery of his body, and his secrets only emerge once he’s died.
- Posthumous Character: Dieter Hess, the retired asset whose death starts the story.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Bluntly averted by Di Taverner when Bachelor worries that he’ll be sent to Slough House:
- Refuge in Audacity: J.K. Coe seeks help from Molly Doran, a cantankerous wheelchair-bound records officer. As it's a side-of-desk favour, he tries to keep her amused and interested. And at one point that means a “you've got a great set of wheels" quip. There is a very long pause - during which he sees his career flashing before his eyes - before Molly collapses into riotous laughter.
- Shout-Out: An in-universe one to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by Di Taverner when’s she’s berating Bachelor at Hess’s wake.
- Walking Spoiler: It’s hard to say much about Hannah Weiss without revealing most of the plot. Even without the final twist
- Wham Line: "Wir sind alle sehr stolz auf dich, Hannah", confirming that Lamb’s suspicions were right and Bachelor’s been conned. "We're all very proud of you, Hannah".
