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)
AudioFile
With Gerard Doyle’s unique vocal mix of classical theater training, Estuary English, and a world-weary yet street-smart tone, one can practically feel the cold, rain-slicked streets of London…Doyle creates distinct voices for the many characters and is especially adept at keeping detailed conversations between male and female characters vital and clear.”
New York Times
Manages the rare feat of being comical, suspenseful, and perceptive.”
NPR
It’s just great fun.”
Irish Times (Dublin)
[A] deliciously sleazy and sophisticated spy thriller.”
Slate
Intricate plotting, full of twists…[with] Herron’s very black, very dry sense of humor.”
Booklist
[A] crackling good spy-thriller farce…A wonderfully funny, farcical, deeply cynical skewering.”
The Guardian (London)
A funny, stylish, satirical, gripping story…Memorably seedy characters, sharp dialogue, complex plot.”
Mail on Sunday (London) 5 stars
This is blackly funny, tense, and worryingly plausible. The most enjoyable British spy novel in years.”
From the Publisher
Praise for Slow Horses
"It's just great fun."
—NPR, Morning Edition
“[Herron's] cleverly plotted page-turners are driven by dialogue that bristles with one-liners. Much of the humor comes from Herron’s sharp eye for the way bureaucracies, whether corporate or clandestine, function and malfunction. The world of Slough House is closer to “The Office” than to 007.”
—The Associated Press
“A funny, stylish, satirical, gripping story . . . Memorably seedy characters, sharp dialogue, complex plot. I’m hooked.”
—The Guardian
“This is blackly funny, tense and worryingly plausible. The most enjoyable British spy novel in years.”
—Mail on Sunday, Five-star Review
"[A] deliciously sleazy and sophisticated spy thriller."
—The Irish Times
"These are terrific novels. The writing is very good. The sense of humour is there, and there's a certain amount of skepticism as well, which keeps you wanting to read."
—J.D. Singh, CBC's The Next Chapter
"Subtle, detailed and utterly convincing."
—The Crime Review (UK)
“Slow Horses is a fine thriller . . . it’s also a wonderfully funny, farcical, deeply cynical skewering of politics, bureaucrats, turf wars, and the Great Game.”
—Booklist
Praise for Mick Herron
"Mick Herron never tells a suspense story in the expected way . . . In Herron's book, there is no hiding under the desk."
—The New York Times Book Review
"The sharpest spy fiction since John Le Carré."
—NPR's Fresh Air
"Stylish and engaging."
—The Washington Post
"[A] masterful thriller . . . The intricate plot, coupled with Herron's breezy writing style, results in superior entertainment that makes most other novels of suspense appear dull and slow-witted by comparison."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"Like a good movie . . . grabs the reader from the first page."
—Booklist, Starred Review
NOVEMBER 2022 - AudioFile
With Gerard Doyle’s unique vocal mix of classical theater training, Estuary English, and a world-weary yet street-smart tone, one can practically feel the cold, rain-slicked streets of London. Certainly, one can sense the anger, loss, and betrayal of all the “slow horses,” British intelligence agents who have been put on the back burners of their careers. When a young Pakistani-English college student is kidnapped and British domestic terrorism units start to point fingers, it’s left to the slow horses to race into the breach. Doyle creates distinct voices for the many characters and is especially adept at keeping detailed conversations between male and female characters vital and clear. It’s hard to know whom to trust in this first entry in Mick Herron’s SLOUGH HOUSE series. B.P. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
