Slow Horses

Slough House, Book 1

By: Mick Herron

Narrated by: Sean Barrett

Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

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 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 him.

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….

©2010 Mick Herron (P)2010 Isis Publishing Ltd

Start of a great series.

What made the experience of listening to Slow Horses the most enjoyable?

It's a very interesting if somewhat silly premise. MI5 agents that make "mistakes" are relegated to Slough House. They're deemed too stupid and dangerous to be "achievers" (the good spies) so they are instead trapped in kind of a purgatory, stuck doing the tedious and menial paperwork associated with covert operations. And, of course, bored spies get into all kinds of trouble. :)

Who was your favorite character and why?

Probably the Slow Horses' leader, Lamb, because he's so multi-dimensional. And very funny.

Have you listened to any of Sean Barrett’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I could listen to Mr. Barrett recite the phone book and be very entertained. He is, simply, one of the best. This may be an instance where the performance was better than the material. I've sampled the next one in the series and it's nowhere near as good. I may actually skip to the third which has another of my favorites doing the job - Gerard Doyle.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue. I will say that it is a little disjointed and I found myself having to replay sections so I really grasped what I was hearing. But then I read while I run so sometimes I get distracted. There's a lot of moving parts in Slow Horses - it's not a book you can breeze through without paying full attention. I think the characters are all very interesting so it will be fun getting to know them in the following books.

Any additional comments?

N/A

Best Narrator

Love this story, tried a sample with a different narrator but Sean Barrett makes magic. Totally recommend

excellent

Starts off slow and depressingly dark, but stick with it -- the characters and plot develop in all sorts of unexpected ways. I really enjoyed this one, and the narrator was perfect for the material.

I really liked this one!

Slow Horses is an interesting new take on the Spy Game genre.

Instead of the best of the best in modern spy craft, we are introduced to the cast-off's of an offbeat MI-5 division. "Mission Unattainable". Because they are screw-ups, they have been relegated to a backwater department that monitors emails for suspicious activity (at current they have checked 80,000 emails and have found no imminent threats).

I enjoyed the writing style, which was descriptive, but not bogged-down in details. And enjoyed the characters immensely, especially the corpulent and flatulent director of the Slough House Division.

However, one criticism I feel inclined to make is: halfway through the book several peripheral characters became main characters; It became very confusing for me personally to know what just happened. It took a re-listen to those parts before I could make sense of who was who and when, and where, and why... The story steadied itself before a satisfactory ending.

I definitely recommend to fans of the genre.

An actually well written spy story

I had been looking for a long time, looking for a suspenseful novel with some soul. The title and premise of this one sounded unusual enough to be able to hold the framework for good writing.

I'm a big fan of John Le Carre for his ability to balance good characters that the reader comes to care about, with suspense and some physical sequences. I also like the older Lee Child books for their direct and blunt story telling.

Mostly I find that towards the end, when the converging timelines seems to hold lives in the balance, stop reading because I simply don't care how it turns out for the characters. That is, if I haven't stopped reading long ago and returned the book.

This one is well written. Not as dreamy as Le Carre, it has a touch of poetic charm, dilapidated anti-heroes who may or may not rise to the occasion when it presents itself.

I can recommend this book to people who like the literary spy thriller. I reserve 5 stars for the next Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

I found this book on a list of the 25 best spy novels of all time. I plan to get more from this list.

Superb, but

Great narration. Great story and plot line. Great use of language. BUT in audible form I occasionally got lost because sometimes the narration flowed seamlessly to a different group of people and a different discussion, and all of a sudden I got confused and had to rewind 30 secs to try and work out what was happening.

A Literate Thriller!

Bored with Connelly? Move across the pond and enjoy this group of misfits spy's as they try and best MI-5 sinister machinations who put them together into the SLOW HOUSE for their past sins against the organization. Literate & entertaining!

Le Carre's Heir Apparent

You know those books where immediately after you finish it, you think, "I hope this is the beginning of a series!" Yeah, me neither. Except I felt that way about "Slow Horses." Dismissing it for months because of the title (horses = wild west = yawn) After a spate of unwise, underwhelming book choices, I finally read this novel's description and gave it a try. Well, as they say, 'even a blind pig finds a truffle every once in awhile,' and I found a treasure in "Slow Horses." The title is a wordplay and the pejorative term used to describe those British intelligence officers who have somehow messed up just enough to take themselves off the MI5 fast track but not quite enough to get fired. In author Mick Herron's words, (Slough House) "serves as an administrative oubliette where alongside a pre-digital overflow of paperwork, a post-useful crew of misfits may be stored and left to gather dust."

You can see the vein of gold waiting to be mined right there: the back story of each disgraced officer, what they reveal to each other, how they accept their lot, the painful interactions with MI5 high flyers when their duties involve an errand to Regent's Park. Add to that the kidnapping of a British national with foreign roots and we're off and running for an enthralling ride of intrigue. It is tempting to agree with the other excellent reviews describing this book as full of 'twists and turns.' But in an effort to say something new, I'll describe it as a book with ongoing revelations that cause the reader to think, "Oh, so that means...." As the story progresses, details about each character emerge and they are always smart and they always make sense. The head of Slough House, Jackson Lamb, is an acerbic, vulgar "anti-Smiley" who lives less in his head than George Smiley does, but is just as old school in his fierce loyalty to those agents entrusted to him.

Narrator Sean Barrett delivers the story well and without distraction."Slow Horses" contains portions of intense dialog so being able to differentiate the speakers is crucial and Barrett does this well.

Back to the series idea. I'm picky and have probably shot myself in the foot by avoiding some great reads just because I've seen them in airport bookstores. I'm not proud of my literary pretensions, but I believe they have protected me from excessive eye rolling and exasperation over the years. I'll immediately pounce on a Dalgliesh mystery from P.D. James, a Wexford novel from Rendell, and an Inspector Gamache from Penny. Other series? Wary as a cat. However, a book like "Slow Horses" leaves me hungry to read more novels involving this great cast of characters. So, Mr. Herron, it's been decided: a series it shall be. Write on.

We're all a bit slow, aren't we?

I envisioned a marvelous flowerbed, right in that weedy corner of the yard. I wanted it, but was dreading the prospect of digging up the ground. Turning the soil, digging out the weeds and grass, adding compost and mulch, prepping the soil. My least favorite part.

So this book was chosen to keep me company. Something entertaining and light.

The story started out slow. Frankly, if I hadn't been stuck in the yard anyway, I might have stopped listening. Then about an hour in, I found myself laughing.But in that not quite funny but sort of wincing way--when the joke is on you and it's a bit painful.

And I stopped playing in the dirt. Rewound. And listened again.

That was my introduction to Slough House and Mick Herron. Underrated. Under the radar. Magnificently, awesomely human.

These are the stories of heroes who have dared greatly and failed spectacularly. And survived. Banned to a boring, mundane, useless existence. Except once or twice, they get to secretly save the world.

Just keep listening

I agree with the other reviewers that after the "slough" start, the book pays off with absorbing action and characters. It's a thriller that avoids the shallow, formulaic hero and spunky/beautiful, etc. heroine. The characters themselves take as many unexpected but well grounded turns as the plot and one of the most repellent characters becomes the most admired. (He also has the best lines, making this book a good listen for the humor alone.) Even the parts that I didn't find believable did not detract from my enjoyment of the book as it progressed.

The narrator can make or break a book and Barrett's edgy reading was perfect.