Slow Horses by Mick Herron

Dry Drayton Book Group choice for February 2023

This is the first book in an eight book series about a team of MI5 agents who work at Slough House, a department of MI5.  They are united by a common bond in that they have all disgraced themselves in some way and have been relegated to Slough House where they are now based, but they will do anything to redeem themselves.  The Slough House novels have won two Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Gold Dagger Awards for the best crime writing of the year.  

Slough House is run by Jackson Lamb, a one time MI5 agent who has a healthy disrespect for his boss at MI5 but proves useful in repairing failed operations.  He heads up a team of ‘misfits’ known as ‘slow horses’ many of whom are not entirely sure of how they have become a ‘slow horse’ and ended up at Slough House.  One such ‘slow horse’ is River Cartwright, who is bitter about his failure and about his tedious assignments transcribing cell phone conversations. When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his death live on the Internet, River sees an opportunity to redeem himself. But is the victim really who he appears to be and what is the kidnappers’ connection with a disgraced journalist? As the clock ticks on for the kidnap hostage, River finds that everyone has their own agenda.

Many of the group enjoyed the book but a number found this quite a different and less enjoyable genre.  The group did agree that the time shifts within the plot were well handled and kept the reader guessing about where the story was leading.  The tension was maintained right to the end of the book and the author set the scene well moving the story forward at pace which was helped by a technique of using short sentences to create tension and pace. There is a brutality of interactions between the main characters which is well drawn and understandable given the way in which the group has been brought together.  This brutality is tempered by humour and in particular Jackson Lamb’s acerbic wit, however the group felt that this exaggerated his character.  Whilst the story is pure fiction the group did reflect on the need for the security services and the type of people that are drawn to this work who often do appear quite remote and ‘different’.  

Many felt that the writing style was that of a screen play and that it has easily translated to a TV series which some members of the group had watched and found it faithful to the book.