Slow Horses (Slough House Series #1)

by Mick Herron

Overview

Now a critically acclaimed series on Apple TV+

Welcome to the thrilling and unnervingly prescient world of the slow horses. This team of MI5 agents is united by one common bond: they’ve screwed up royally and will do anything to redeem themselves.

London, England. Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work.

One thing they have in common, though, is they want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another.

When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the internet, the slow horses see an opportunity to redeem themselves. But is the victim really who he appears to be?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455184248
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	01/24/2017
Series:	Slough House Series , #1
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mick Herron, British novelist and short story writer, is the author of the Slough House espionage series, four Oxford mysteries, and three standalone novels. His work has won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, the Theakston’s Novel of the Year Award, the Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the Ellery Queen Readers Award, and the USC Libraries Scripter Award. His works have been nominated for the Macavity, Barry, and Shamus Awards. He was born in Newcastle and studied English at Oxford.

Gerard Doyle, a seasoned audio narrator, he has been awarded dozens of AudioFile Earphones Awards, was named a Best Voice in Young Adult Fiction in 2008, and won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He was born of Irish parents and raised and educated in England. In Great Britain he has enjoyed an extensive career in both television and repertory theater and toured nationally and internationally with the English Shakespeare Company. He has appeared in London’s West End in the gritty musical The Hired Man. In America he has appeared on Broadway in The Weir and on television in New York Undercover and Law & Order. He has taught drama at Ross School for the several years.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Slow Horses"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Mick Herron.
Excerpted by permission of Soho Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

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Editorial Reviews

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.”

AudioFile

Manages the rare feat of being comical, suspenseful, and perceptive.”

New York Times

It’s just great fun.”

NPR

[A] deliciously sleazy and sophisticated spy thriller.”

Irish Times (Dublin)

A funny, stylish, satirical, gripping story…Memorably seedy characters, sharp dialogue, complex plot.”

The Guardian (London)

This is blackly funny, tense, and worryingly plausible. The most enjoyable British spy novel in years.”

Mail on Sunday (London) 5 stars

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

NOVEMBER 2022 - AudioFile

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)

Publishers Weekly

Intricate plotting, full of twists…[with] Herron’s very black, very dry sense of humor.”

Slate

[A] crackling good spy-thriller farce…A wonderfully funny, farcical, deeply cynical skewering.”

Booklist

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

From the Publisher