Slow Horses [Hardcover]

Nick Herron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2010

Let us be clear about this much at least: Slough House is not in Slough, nor is it a house...Slough House is Jackson Lamb's kingdom; a dumping ground for members of the intelligence service who've screwed up: left a secret file on a train, blown a surveillance, or become drunkenly unreliable. They're the service's poor relations - the slow horses - and bitterest among them is River Cartwright, whose days are spent transcribing mobile phone conversations. But when a young man is abducted, and it's threatened that he'll be beheaded live on the Internet, River sees an opportunity to redeem himself. Is the victim who he first appears to be? And what's the kidnappers' connection with a disgraced journalist? As the clock ticks on the execution, River finds that everyone involved has their own agenda ...And unless the slow horses can prove they're not as useless as they're thought to be, a young man's death is going to echo around the world. Praise for Mick Herron: 'Mick Herron never tells a suspense story in the expected way, which is why his new novel, "Reconstruction", reads as much like a puzzle mystery as it does a thriller ...unpleasant things are bound to happen, and they do - but not until Herron has finished surprising us . ..there is no hiding under the desk' - "New York Times". 'This is one of these novels where you read it, not just to see what happens at the end, but to see what happens on the very next page' - "Booklist". 'Good characterisation, dialogue and well-paced narrative make this confident first novel frighteningly plausible' - "Sunday Telegraph". 'Tight, literary and cliche free' - "Publishers Weekly". 'Stylish and engaging' - "Washington Post".

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Banished to London's Slough House—the junkyard for disgraced MI5 agents—for botching a high-profile training exercise, River Cartwright spends his days sifting through garbage and transcribing phone conversations in Herron's riveting spy thriller. His boss, Jackson Lamb, who governs Slough House as if it's his own kingdom, makes sure the slow horses know they'll never get back to high-profile work at Regent's Park. River, bored with his tedious assignments, discovers that one of his fellow agents has been lifting information from Robert Hobden, a well-known journalist. When a Muslim teenager is kidnapped and a video promising to decapitate him appears online, River wonders if it's connected to Hobden, who has ties to the extremist British Patriotic Party. Herron (Smoke & Whispers) avoids the easy cliché of misfits banding together to right a wrong, instead painting his slow horses as complex characters who are just as fallible as their faster counterparts. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Slough House is an “administrative oubliette” for British intelligence. Spooks who have screwed up in a big way are assigned there, and no one has ever been returned to real service. In spook speak, the denizens of Slough House are Slow Horses, objects of scorn, “fridge magnets.” River Cartwright, the ostensible protagonist of this crackling good spy thriller-farce, wants to be the first Slow Horse to force his own resurrection to MI5, and he sees his chance when an apparently inept right-wing group kidnaps a Pakistani youth and threatens to behead him on a live webcast. Saying more about the plot might spoil the fun. Herron’s sixth novel is filled with acidic wit and engaging misdirection, and readers will need to adjust to his narrative style; but the rewards are great. Slow Horses is a fine thriller with enough suspense, double-dealing, and mayhem for thriller devotees; but it’s also a wonderfully funny, farcical, deeply cynical skewering of politics, bureaucrats, turf wars, and the Great Game. --Thomas Gaughan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Constable (April 29, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1849013101
• ISBN-13: 978-1849013109
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow Horses finish first in the end, July 18, 2011

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Glinda Good (Michigan) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Slow Horses (Hardcover)

The title points to the most important element of the novel -- the characters exiled to Slough House. Taken from active duty for a variety of reasons that range from performance to politically motivated ass-covering to nuisance relocation, the people who report for work at Slough House under the eagle-eye of Jackson Lamb are the skeleton of the story the plot is hung upon.

The synopsis provided by Publishers Weekly adequately outlines the plot of Slow Horses, and too much more would spoiler some parts of the novel that are best discovered slowly. While River Cartwright may be the first major character introduced, the story is as much about his fellow exiles finding new life and mission, and may ultimately be mostly about the canny, overweight, determined head of Slough House, Jackson Lamb.

I look forward to reading future novels by Mick Herron. I get the feeling that he's still working on the perfect balance of plot/character/action. He's very close to perfect with Slow Horses.