Slow Horses (Slough House) Paperback – March 11, 2014

Slough House—Slough rhymes with cow—is where Britain’s MI5 sends intelligence officers it doesn’t want but won’t fire, in hope that the sheer drudgery of their assignments, combined with the dreadfulness of their boss, will lead those agents to quit. Some do. The ones who stick around are called “slow horses,” hence the title of this book.Slow Horses opens with MI5 officer River Cartwright tracking a suspected terrorist through King’s Cross, one of Lond’s major railway stations. Unfortunately, the terrorist detonates a suicide vest before he can be apprehended, killing scores and causing millions in damage, billions in lost tourism revenue.Just not in reality. The entire episode was a training episode taking place at King’s Cross. Yes, thousands of commuters were actually evacuated from the station, but other than that, no harm, no foul—except that Cartwright gets sent down to Slough House for crashing King’s Cross.There, we might other denizens of this realm, which is governed by the rude, crude Cold War spymaster Jackson Lamb, who inherited his dominion for reasons that become clear only later in the novel.The plot of Slow Horses centers on the kidnapping of a British subject, though by whom and for what reason is not immediately apparent. All that is known is that the kidnappers will decapitate him in 48 hours. Everyone naturally expects Muslim terrorists.But here’s the thing: the victim is Muslim, but the terrorists are not. With everyone’s assumptions turned upside down, MI5 has the job of finding the victim before the kidnappers separate his head from his shoulders.Then Slough House gets dragged into the mess in more ways than one, putting them in the crosshairs. The only solution? The slow horses need to outrace the Park—that is, Regent’s Park, where MI5 is headquartered—before they get stabbed in the back.Slow Horses is the first in a series of novels by Mick Herron that focus on Slough House. It is a brilliant introduction to the characters and the series, and its plots are filled with enough twists to induce motion sickness. It’s a page-turner that keeps you in suspense to the end, marveling at the depths of deception spies are capable of. The dialogue is razor sharp. And the characters—especially Jackson Lamb—are sharply and hilariously drawn.So, five stars from me. Read this book, then keep reading the entire series!

Concise and compact, this stuffs a lot of plot, action and a great cast of characters into a surprisingly short book. It moves fast and jumps around, mostly in an endearing way (but see the last paragraph). The characters shine through anyway, especially Jackson Lamb. The twists and turns are great and the arrogance of the powerful is sort of classic here.If you've seen the brilliant TV series, this is still worth a read, even though the series Season 1 is rather close to this direct-line plot, which often seems perfectly written for the screen. It is easy to see Gary Oldman speaking when Jackson Lamb is on the page here. The TV version admittedly does make this book a lot less essential. It's common for readers to say "The book is better," but I don't think that is true here. The TV series is notably more fleshed out (while remaining faithful to the book and characters) and frankly more interesting, given how good the cast is and the length of time they have to work. They bring this book to life in a way this short book can't quite equal.If I had a quibble, it related less to the book--so, I'm not dinging another star--and more to the Kindle formatting of the book. As noted, it moves around fast. There are quick cuts within chapters, minor scene changes, that are not set off in any way. For example, there aren't caps beginning a new segment. (Some major cuts/scene changes have caps at the beginning of the new segment, but these quicker cuts do not.) Nor for these quick cuts do they use characters to space things out (like ##, whatever and so on). They just make a routine line break of no consequence--not even a double line break--and are then onto the next character's short scene. For example, on page 198 of my Kindle edition (as displayed on my phone) the last line of a conversation between Lamb and Taverner is: "How could this get worse?" Line break. The next sentence is: "'Because it's got to be stopped,' Hobden said." If anything, that cut gives a clue since Hobden is not part of the Lamb-Taverner conversation, but it at first looks like it is part of that conversation. Having to re-orient so quickly as the text blends into one scene after another is a little disorienting. Some formatting help would be nice.

What was not to like about this book? Unforgettably drawn characters, intriguing plot, laugh out loud retributions for back stabbing colleagues . I ordered the next in the series after the second chapter of Slow Horses.

Interesting characters and unlikely plot twists make this a good read.I'll continue with the next book in the series.

Mick Herron's Slough House series is utterly terrific. They're full of sarcasm, snide remarks, verbal abuse, politically incorrect banter, fringe characters, and great stories about the intelligence community in the UK. I have enjoyed every one of them. If you're a fan of the genre, or of writers like LeCarre, Follett, and Fleming, I expect you will like them, too.

Fabulously dark drama, worryingly that it's probably based on fact! Really well cast and directed the most original drama I've seen in years, darkly credible and darkly funny, superb.

Well written, both serious and funny. If the rest of the series is this good I'll be happy.

I've ready the first three books in the series, and I'm certainly going to go on! They are very good in characters (really interesting and not stereotyped as usual in this kind of stories) and plots, which are smooth: again, something not exactly easy to find in spy stories. A John LeCarre' for the present time.

The voice brings out the moral, technical and real dilemmas of spooks, as they navigate real politik. It’s hits home in ways you wouldn’t want politics to.