Slow Horses

When I'm anticipating a movie or tv show coming out that's based on a book, I'll often try to read it first as I find seeing the story I've just read visualized is an interesting experience.

In this case, I had watched and really enjoyed the first season of the show before I started reading, which covers this book in is entirety, and is pretty darn faithful to it.

So while listening to this audiobook, I found myself in a weird position of generally just picturing the scenes from the show more than actually engaging with the writing, I think? It's hard to say how much I got out of the book itself.

Still, I'm a sucker for this type of story and the characters and quippy dialogue is a lot of fun. I'll definitely be watching more of the show and I'll try to figure out if/when to read the books.

What if James Bond was a bored, fat, semi-retired spy who doesn't trust anyone. Begrudgingly leading a small team of ex-spies who, like him, are punished for having fucked up, they turn out to be smarter and more resourceful than their career-obsessed former colleagues. There's a kidnapping to be solved, but it's mostly the characters, their interconnected backstories and the complex web of office politics that makes it a page-turner

Bad writing. Example:

“The chances of a parking revenue attendant - or whatever they were called today - doing the rounds after midnight were slim, but not non-existent.”

What is the point of that parenthetical aside? Is it the narrator who does not know what to call the people in this job? The author? The copy editor? If you don't know what something is called, look it up and learn. That goes for authors as well as their characters.

[Audiobook read by Sean Barrett]

Loved the wit and chuckle-inducing turns of phrase. Couldn't stop listening to it.


Also better appreciate the TV series that did a good job of adapting the book right while still being true to it (special appreciation for the casting director). To be fair, Herron wrote most of it for them — the dialogues remain unchanged.

Starts out rather slow but in hindsight the author is set up something to compare to later and giving background on the various players. I liked it well enough to move on to the next in the series and would consider a reread years later. When I've forgotten the details enough to enjoy again, or if I find out later, there are layers to the story that I didn't pick up on the first time around that would become apparent with another read.

NPR on a regular basis checks in with bookstore owners around the country to see what they would recommend for the upcoming reading season; this was one of those recommends.

Book 1 of 2024 is complete!

Though I've rated it 4 stars, I was so close to DNFing it in the middle. I had actually started this book in December, stopped it bec I wanted to wrap up a different series. And I restarted the book yesterday.

The point where I had stopped was where I was about to DNF it, 5-6 chapters in. But I kept at it, and it turned into this absolutely stunning and gripping thriller. This book is definitely a slow burn. It takes time to understand the characters, and by the end of it you still aren't sure you know them fully, but what you do learn makes them so interesting.

But if i do have to make some sort of criticism, it would be with the narrator and, perhaps, the editing of the ebook version I read - because sometimes it wasn't clear when the scene had changed and when the narrator was describing something else and not a continuation of the previous scene. That was about the only thing that threw me off and kept taking me out of the narrative, and maybe that is why i was on the verge of DNFing it.

There were so many threads at work here, crossings, double and then triple crossings and herrings of all colours - it really was a but hard to get through without taking a breather every few chapters - this isn't an easily bingeable book. Once you've got the flow, then it is well worth the mildly confusing narrative.

(Side note: For someone who thought the main character was Jackson Lamb, I was shocked to find him more of a background character in the first 9-10 chapters before I understood what is going on. The sequels are all also billed under Jackson Lamb thrillers, so I was confused at the start.)

I liked the fact that Hassan, the kid that was kidnapped, wasn't just some name or just some generic face - he had his own personality and was a fully realised character.

I started this series because the tv show seemed good, so I wanted to read some of the books before I started the show. Given how much I loved this, I think I'll love the show even more.

The way Herron write takes some getting used to, but once you've learned his tricks and his language, then a whole new world of thrillers has opened itself up.

This was a great book to get snowed in with. It's a classic British spy novel set in modern times when we have Islamophobia and ISIS, suicide bombings and hatred of immigrants. The spies who are the focus of the story have all screwed up in some way and been demoted to Slough House, where they are known as slow horses. Their boss is Jackson Lamb, who had a career as a field agent, but who now seems to be an overweight, ill-tempered, washed up has-been. They spend their time on tedious assignments that are designed to demoralise them to the point that they quit of their own accord, sparing the Secret Service the hassle of firing them. Through a series of seemingly unrelated events, the slow horses get drawn into investigating the kidnapping and impending broadcast execution of a young man.

Slow Horses is well written and darkly funny. It has intricate subplots, misdirection, clever wordplay, and political strategy, all of which make it fun to follow the story, but also a little bit hard. It was really an enjoyable book. I didn't realize it was the first of a series when I picked it up, but now I feel I need to read the second.

Story: Failed spies, washed up and banished to a purgatory of sorts end up caught up in the machinations of others. A a complex thriller type plot that does drive the reading along, a bit of a page turner and the plot points are taken from contemporary news.
Setting: Contemporary London and it is believably presented. At times almost a character itself, enjoyable.
Language: Modern english with some spy type slang, not challenging.
Character: The characters are certainly the strength of the book. Washed up, failed, incompetent, arrogant, overly ambitious and well the list is long as to what ails the main characters but at the core they are looking to get past whatever it is that has led them to be in their current lot. Many of these histories are relatable, apparently spies are human.

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

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Slough House is an overlooked, unimportant, run-down annex of MI-5 (or, simply, “Five.”) Slough house is where Five sends its dead-weight, agents who have screwed up colossally or become undependable because of drink or neurosis. The agents no they are losers, a legion of the lost, chiefly because the chief of Slough House, the gross, corpulent, blasphemous Jackson Lamb, delights in telling them that they are utter losers.

River Cartwright has been condemned to Slough House because he confused the description of a terrorist and got the wrong man. Or maybe River was set up. Since River's grandfather was a legend in the service, River is not cashiered. Instead, he sent to the “slow horses” at Slough House he where is given mundane, trivial and banal tasks that are intended to force him to quit. In addition, Jackson Lamb tells him repeatedly that his mistake caused the death of scores of Britons and cost Britain 2.5 billion pounds in lost tourism.

The first part of the book passes rather slowly as we are introduced to slow horses. There is also a plot line about the surveillance of a British journalism. Things kick into gear, however, when plots and counterplots start to emerge. At that point, we learn that Jackson Lamb really is the hero of the story. We see Lamb reveal what made him a to field agent behind the Iron Curtain.

This novel is well-written. The characters are well-drawn. There may be some plot holes, but it was a fun read.

It's not the book's fault! It's an award-winning debut to a series based on the fantastic premise of Slough House, where disgraced, problematic, or washed up MI5 agents go to toil out the rest of their days. And clearly there was enough there to warrant a fantastic series on AppleTV.

But therein lies the problem. I watched the first season based on this book, starring an outlandishly flatulent Gary Oldman, first and THEN read the book. It's not a matter of the show being better than the book, it's just they are both exactly the same. It was like I was reading the script for the season - the book adds nothing to the experience. There's no missed backstory, no character interiority that's examined, no literary flourishes that would be impossible to render onscreen. Apart from a slight divergence at the ending (which I thought the show did better anyways) the two are one and the same.

So it gets knocked a star for a lacklustre reading experience, unique to me. Read on its own, prior to seeing the show, I imagine it would fare a lot better.

That was...REALLY good. Fantastic pacing which feels especially important in this type of novel. I think there are certain passages that would be written differently in 2022 than 2010, but for a spy/has-been-spy novel involving various political and interpersonal clashes, violence, and detestable (white supremacist) foes, I didn't encounter an offensive authorial voice, but rather a bunch of messy complex protagonists that were each given due consideration on page. I saw various people make shallow judgements and underestimations but that made the rounds of badassery that came later that much sweeter. Excited to continue in this series.

With Slow Horses, Mick Herron introduces us to a cast of quirky British intelligence agents who have been relegated to Slough House, a bureaucratic purgatory for washed-up MI5 spies. When a young man is kidnapped, this group of misfits gets a chance to prove themselves again in the field. Herron combines a clever, intricate plot with irresistibly eccentric characters for an espionage thriller that's subtly satirical yet still filled with real suspense.

We meet River Cartwright, an arrogant young agent whose career is derailed when a training exercise goes horribly wrong. Now parked at Slough House doing pointless busywork with other screw-ups, he bristles at his diminished status. But when the kidnapped boy has a connection to him, River sees an opportunity to redeem himself by solving the case off the books with his eccentric colleagues.

This ragtag group includes classics scholar-turned-spy Roddy Ho, Forensic accountant Catherine Standish, and Jackson Lamb, their irritable, brilliant leader nursing dark secrets of his own. Herron deftly handles multiple storylines as the agents tangle with Russian mobsters and uncover conspiracies. The characters' unique skills and dysfunctions mesh beautifully to unravel the twisty case.

The plot is clever, but the real joy is the sarcastic, witty dialogue between the spies. Herron writes with sharp humor and colorfully animates each character. There's enjoyable friction, banter, and camaraderie between the oddball yet compelling agents. Even Jackson Lamb reveals moving depths beneath his slovenly, obstinate surface.

With its stellar character development, taut suspense, and sparkling wit, Slow Horses is a wonderfully entertaining read. Herron has boldly reinvigorated the espionage thriller with a healthy dose of humor and eccentricity. I eagerly await the next misadventure of these damaged yet brilliant MI5 agents.