Slow Horses by Mick Herron

Author: Mick Herron

Title: Slow Horses

Published: 2010

Publisher: Baskerville 

Pages: 336

Genre: Spy Thriller 

     Welcome to Slough House, Regent’s Park, a graveyard for members of the intelligence service no longer in the game – the slow horses. A motley crew of criminals, abusers, and troubled souls, banished for various crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal – they all belong to Jackson Lamb. Jackson Lamb's misfits may be highly trained but they don't run ops, they push paper. When a boy is kidnapped and held hostage and his attackers promise to behead him, live on the net, a chance opens up for the slow horses to redeem themselves, and whatever the instructions of the Service, the slow horses aren't going to just sit quiet and watch. Yet, as they begin to investigate, a more complex web of deceit and double agency begins to opens up.

     I happened upon this book by complete chance. I had finished watching my current t.v show and was looking for something to watch next when I came across the adaptation of this book. I loved every episode so when I had finished I went looking for a copy of the book to see where it all started. I think there is something for the most part that English authors bring to their spy novels that tend to be skipped over in books such as this from other countries. There is not only a more grounded approach to the profession but also a good sense of humor brought to it. There is this notion that the job has this James Bond like quilty to it all. But here as well as a great many other British spy novels we get a good sense of the reality of it all. Including long stretches of great boredom on jobs that need doing but aren't exactly big screen material.

     Our entry into the world of the slow horses comes in the form of River Cartwright. A should be up and comer in the ranks of the MI5. In a brief summing up we get to witness his downfall in a matter of a few moments. The problem being that deep down in his bones River knows he was born to do this. So rather than quitting and getting himself a cushy job in private security, he decided he will stick it out with the other screw-ups in the hopes of finding a way back to play with the top dogs. He is someone you feel for, you want him to succeed no matter how bad things get for them all. But it's not just the world of internal espionage that our hero is having to fight against. 

     Enter his new boss Jackson Lamb, he is a man who used to be something. During the cold war, Lamb had been all we think of when it comes to spies of that era. But now all he wants to do is live out a quiet life until he slowly shuffles off his mortal coil. He is also someone who has great disdain for anyone who tries to put their head up above the parapet. He believes that those under him should know their place and simply get on with the jobs he gives them. He is what we would call a grumpy bugger who it would seem, hates every other person in his office. Lamb is also the greatest source of humor thought the book. The character that somehow brought me the greatest number of laughs. And I think despite everything to the contrary he does care just a little about what happens in his world. 

     This is a book that walks the line between what I imagine the job is really like doubled up with enough action to keep it entering for the reader. We get those moments of blood-pumping action sequences intertwined with more moments of this group of misfits just doing the job. I was also surprised by just how much the book and t.v shows follow the same line. It was a pleasant relief for once to see that they had taken the source material and simply pushed it up to the big screen. I would say this goes a great deal to speaking about Herron's writing ability. He has created a world that I was more than happy to sit in for a few hours. He seems to have found a great balance of these genres and characters to produce a book that is great to get lost in the adventure of it all. It is also worth noting the only real difference that happened between the book and the novel comes at the ending of it all. So having gone in fully expecting to know what lay ahead of me it came as a pleasant surprise. 

     Slow Horse is one of those great spy thrillers to get your teeth into. It comes in part due to this great blending of high-stakes spy games and also the sense that whilst you are reading it your mind keeps saying I could see MI5 doing that. What he has created here is simply great entertainment, a feat you should not underestimate. It was so very easy for me to get lost in this story and I am more than happy to roll into the next one. And sometimes this is all we need from a novel so the great twisting plot only come as a great bonus to what is an amazing book.