Slow Horses

Mick Herron is the author of 10 books, and his 11^th is due out in 2017. Slow Horses, written in 2010, is the first in a five-novel series called Slough House, about Jackson Lamb, an old English Spy who is not quite ready to go quietly into retirement. I was intrigued beginning with the first sentence, “This is how River Cartwright slipped off the fast track and joined the slow horses.” In Britain’s spy system, the slow horses are spies who screwed up assignments or even training exercises, not bad enough to be fired, but not good enough to be trusted with any meaningful work. For men and women who dreamed of and who trained to be an integral part of covert action, the assignment to the Slough House was akin to a slow death. Regents Park was the site of the people who were involved in the game in which everyone at Slough House wanted to be a part. Everyone at Slough House hoped to be invited back to Regents Park, but that had never happened. When Ingrid Tearney, the big boss at Regents Park, was out of town, leadership fell to “Second Desk” Diana Taverner, know to all as Lady Di, a derogative term, and no one would have ever said that to her face.

Jackson Lamb sat on the top floor of Slough House and ran the show there, although the reason for his assignment to the Slow Horses was never revealed as it was for the other characters. Lamb was a no-nonsense character who was absolutely disgusting in and unapologetic for his personal habits. Cartwright is a young buck, grandson of a spy legend, talented, intuitive, but he got put on the shelf because of his alleged failure to stop a bomb from going off in the London subway. The bomb never went off, his failure was only in a dress rehearsal practice event, but that was enough for Lady Di to send him to the Slow Horses.

But, the Slow Horses got a chance at action when Lady Di inexplicably asked for their help to rescue a kidnap victim. At first, the identity of the victim was unknown and it was assumed that Al Qaeda got him – that it was another terrorist event to strike in Britain’s homeland. However, the victim turned out to be Hassan Ahmed, a native born Brit of Pakistani heritage. Herron wrote of the kidnap victim, “Fear lives in the guts. That’s where it makes its home. It moves in, shifts stuff around; empties a space for itself – it likes the echoes its wingbeats make. It likes the smell of its own farts.” The kidnappers threatened to behead Hassan and display the act online. It was Lamb who figured out the kidnappers weren’t from Al Qaeda: “Somebody somewhere will be using words fight fire with fire. Some other dickhead’ll be saying that what works in Karachi workds just as well in Birmingham…. They’re home-grown fuckwits who think they’re taking it back to the enemy.”

Meanwhile, Robert Hobden, a has-been journalist with right wing beliefs was desperately looking for one more story to bring him back into media’s limelight. In short, there was a wonderful plot of insider fighting among Britain’s covert operatives and administrators while solving this crime and rescuing the victim was at risk.

I was taken by the plot, the characters, the dialogue, and the narrative language, so I’ve already acquired the second book in the series, Dead Lions. I heard about this book and author while listening to an NPR show with Nancy Pearl who raved about the story. I agree, and I plan to pay more attention to Ms. Pearl’s recommendations (worth a plug – it’s www.nancypearl.com).

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