The year opened with good news for Slow Horses fans: we will have a 5th season! Gone are the years in which two were approved each time (which helps to record one after the other, as they have done until now), but in difficult times small victories gain more weight. Of the eight books, we have more than half secured!

And what do we know of the likely content? If you continue following the order, it will be London Rules, where we will have a new boss – male – at MI5: Claude Whelan (James Callis). And his life won’t be easy. He faces a country still traumatized by terrorist attacks, has to protect a beleaguered Prime Minister, deal with the ambitions of a Right-wing MP who has the press (via his own wife) orchestrating criticism of British Intelligence, internal racial problems in the country and, of course, the pressure from Lady Di Taverner (Kristin Scott-Thomas) who loves Claude’s every stumble.

In Slough House, the agents’ lives are also in disarray, which gets worse when there is the nagging suspicion that their newest member may be a psychopath. The fact that someone is trying to kill Roddy Ho – and he has a glamorous new girlfriend – is the icing on the cake. And you know, if it can get worse, it certainly will, after all, they are the ones who will have to unite all the dots that are not clearly connected. That’s why Jackson Lamb’s (Gary Oldman) cynicism is essential for the survival of the nags, which is not a sign of tranquility.

Reading that Sophie Okonedo is still in the cast is always good news, besides the usual suspects, of course! But… we will have to wait until 2025 to see the result. For now, the fourth season, although ready, still has no confirmed release date, but it is this year at least!