Category: Slough House

DETAILS:
Series: Slough House,  #4
Publisher: Soho    Crime
Publication Date: December 12, 2017
Format: Paperback
Length: 307 pg.
Read Date: October 18-29, 2024

“You want me to issue a shoot-to-kill order.”

“Well there’s no point shooting to wound. People would only get hurt.”

What’s the Back Cover of Spook Street Say?

What happens when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for those who know too many secrets but don’t remember they’re secret? Or does someone take care of the senile spy for good? These are the paranoid concerns of David Cartwright, a Cold War-era operative and one-time head of MI5 who is sliding into dementia, and questions his grandson, River, must figure out answers to now that the spy who raised him has started to forget to wear pants.

But River, himself an agent at Slough House, MI5’s outpost for disgraced spies, has other things to worry about. A bomb has detonated in the middle of a busy shopping center and killed forty innocent civilians. The “slow horses” of Slough House must figure out who is behind this act of terror before the situation escalates.

Things I’m Not Going to Develop into Paragraphs:

(I just don’t have the time or energy)
bullet Louisa makes a friend! A non-Slough House friend, it should be stressed. Which is great—and will hopefully help her deal with the events of Dead Lions. Sure, I pretty much like everything about Louisa, but this worked really well.
bullet This: “What happens when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for those who know too many secrets but don’t remember they’re secret?” Yeah, it could be phrased a bit more skillfully, but really—what is done in these situations (I have to assume more and more of these happen all the time)
bullet This book is really all about the power behind the throne. Sure, all the attention is on the leader (of whatever), but being the guy behind them—almost all of the power, but with almost none of the accountability or scrutiny, you can get a lot done. And you can direct the person at the top with just the right kind of pressure or incentive.
bullet Yes, the “Slow Horses” are, by design (of both Herron and MI-5) disposable, and impermanent. But some are pretty much irreplaceable, as the poor woman who is brought in to fill Catherine Standish’s shoes learns.
bullet Everything we learned about David Cartwright and his activities seems realistic. It’s chilling and troubling in so many ways. He deserves to be called OB. Or just B.
bullet Back to the impermanent idea. Herron shows us that he’s in the same league as authors like George R.R. Martin when it comes to the mortality of characters. I both admire that and am angered by it.
bullet Roderick Ho…what can I say about him? At the beginning of the book, I couldn’t believe what I was reading about him—it was far more hard to believe than any of the outlandish things we’ve seen Jackson Lamb’s team encounter. By the end, it all made sense. And I might have felt pity for the guy (although he makes it hard)
bullet Herron’s prose is so delicious. It’s mirthful without actually being funny (and only occasionally jokey). It’s so well crafted, it’s…I can’t put it into words. I just love reading him.

They were south of the river, half a mile from the Thames, near one of those busy junctions which rely on the self-preservation instincts of the drivers using it; ether a shining example of new-age civic theory, or an old-fashioned failure of town planning. On one of its corners sat a church; on another, earth-moving monsters re-enacted the Battle of the Bulge behind hoardings which shivered with each impact. A tube station squatted on a third, its familiar brick-and-tile facade more than usually grubby in the drizzle. There was a lot of construction work nearby, buildings wrapped in plastic sheeting, some of it gaudily muralled with visions of a bright new future: the gleaming glass, the pristine paving, the straight white lines of premises yet-to-be. Meanwhile, the surviving shops were the usual array of bookmakers, convenience stores and coffee bars, many of them crouching behind scaffolding, and some of them book-ending alleyways which would be either dead-ends where wheelie-bins congregated, or short-cuts to the labyrinth of darker streets beyond. Once upon a time Charles Dickens wandered this area, doubtless taking notes. Nowadays the local citizenry’s stories were recorded by closed-circuit TV, which had less time for sentimental endings.

So, what did I think about Spook Street?

Once again, I couldn’t stop asking myself why I am so behind in reading these? Why do I take breaks of months and months between them? Everything about this series is great.

I’m just happy the whole time I’m reading one of these books—despite the fact that the events are harrowing, the characters are generally despicable, and what the books suggest about humanity and Western security services (UK’s in particular, but I can only imagine they function pretty similarly to the rest) doesn’t fill one with optimism or confidence.

Spook Street is a solid winner from the horrible incident the book started with to the closing comforting paragraphs and all points in between. Herron planted more seeds than is typical for future installments—and I can’t decide which I want to see first (on second thought, I want to see the Roddy Ho stuff come back to haunt him/Slough House as soon as is humanly possible).

If you’re not reading these books—at my snail-like pace or at a rational pace—you are missing out.

4 1/2 Stars

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Real Tigers by Mick Herron: Things Hit Close to Home for the Slow Horses

By HCNewton

On August 3, 2023

In Fiction, Mick Herron, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Slough House

Real Tigers

by Mick Herron

DETAILS:
Series: Slough House, #3
Publisher: Soho Crime
Publication Date: January 19, 2016
Format: Hardcover
Length: 343 pg.
Read Date: May 21-June 2, 2023

Real Tigers‘ Flap Copy

I don’t like what I’ve come up with to describe the book, so I’m just going to use the flap copy:

London: Slough House is the MI5 branch where disgraced operatives are reassigned after they’ve messed up too badly to be trusted with real intelligence work. The “Slow Horses,” as the failed spies of Slough House are called, are doomed to spend the rest of their careers pushing paper, but they all want back in on the action.

When one of their own is kidnapped and held for ransom, the agents of Slough House must defeat the odds, overturning all expectations of their competence, to breach the top-notch security of MI5’s intelligence headquarters, Regent’s Park, and steal valuable intel in exchange for their comrade’s safety. The kidnapping is only the tip of the iceberg, however—the agents uncover a larger web of intrigue that involves not only a group of private mercenaries but the highest authorities in the Secret Service. After years spent as the lowest on the totem pole, the Slow Horses suddenly find themselves caught in the midst of a conspiracy that threatens not only the future of Slough House, but of MI5 itself.

The Introduction

I absolutely love the way that Herron introduces Slough House and its denizens in each book. It reminds me of the way that Rex Stout’s Archie gives the rundown of Wolfe’s Brownstone and the routine in each book. But Herron’s unique approach to each introduction has really clicked with me and I look forward to this part of the books.

I can see just opening up one of these at random from time to time, reading the description of Slough House, and moving on with just a quick refreshing hit of Herron’s magic.

Roddy Ho

Roddy Ho is a great hacker—that’s clear. He’s probably almost as good as he thinks he is. The level of delusion he has about his desirability to women outdoes even Crais’ John Chen (and that’s saying something)—it’s a fun character trait, even if it is hard to believe that someone can be that clueless about themselves.*

* 5 minutes on social media reminded me of the power of self-delusion. Never mind.

That said…it’s easy between books to remember how fun it is to see him getting verbally smacked around by Lamb or River pressuring him to work, and how good he is at the technical stuff, etc.—but to forget just what wholly unpleasant person he is. I mentioned John Chen before, Chen is helpless and harmless (while being a misogynistic creep). Roddy doesn’t have that veneer of hapless charm that Chen carries—and is a bigger misogynistic creep. I just want to wash my hands after a scene focused on him if it shows him thinking or talking about women. He probably belongs in prison and would’ve ended up there if not for being employed by MI5.

Team Building?

I will say, for a bunch of misanthropic individualists, when it comes to one of their own, the Slow Horses are really good at teamwork. They spend so much time on their own, regretting their own mistakes that landed them in Slough House, dreaming and scheming their way back to Regent’s Park, etc. that they all have a serious bit of tunnel vision. They’re all focused on themselves to the exclusion of pretty much everyone else—but they’re becoming closer to a true team—particularly when one of them is in some sort of jeopardy.

It’s nice to see—and generally funny, because they’re so bad at teamwork. But the bits that they get right—either on the job or off—are heartwarming to see.

As heartwarming as this series gets, anyway.

So, what did I think about Real Tigers?

The way that this book deals with the Dead Lions-aftermath is the best part for me. Obviously, most of that has to do with Lousia, but it’s there for everyone to one degree or another. Yes, these books can be read as stand-alones, but there’s an impact to be felt from the previous novels. The MI5 and political machinations behind all the actions—the twists, double-twists, and triple-twists. I know that’s part-and-parcel for this series, so I’m not complaining about that. It felt off…overdone maybe? The Slow Horses doing their thing was entertaining enough. But the package as a whole felt like a letdown.

Still, I loved reading this book. Herron can put together a sentence like no one else. I can’t imagine there’s something I wouldn’t want to read him describe. Even when I didn’t really connect with the story, I couldn’t stop reading—that’s all down to Herron’s skill and the fantastic characters he fills his books with. I’m not just talking about the Horses, even the characters that you’re going to see for 1-2 chapters feel like they’ve got a depth to them that could sustain a novel.

4 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.

Dead Lions by Mick Herron: An Overdue Read for Me, the Best of Both Worlds for Spy Fiction Fans

By HCNewton

On December 5, 2022

In Mick Herron, Slough House

Dead Lions

by Mick Herron

DETAILS:
Series: Slough House, #2
Publisher: Soho Crime
Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Format: Paperback
Length: 347 pg.
Read Date: November 21-24, 2022

…whatever we’re here for, Lamb’s not being punished. Or if he is, he’s enjoying it.”

“So what’s your point?”

He said, “That he knows where some bodies are buried. Probably buried a few himself.”

“Is that a metaphor?”

“I failed English. Metaphor’s a closed book to me.”

“So you think he’s handy?”

“Well, he’s overweight and drinks and smokes and I doubt he takes much exercise that doesn’t involve picking up a phone and calling out for a curry. But yeah, now you mention it, I think he’s handy.”

“He might’ve been once,” Shirley said. “But there’s not much point in being handy if you’re too slow to be any good at it.”

But Marcus disagreed. Being handy was a state of mind. Lamb could wear you down just standing in front of you, and you wouldn’t know he was a threat until he was walking away, and you were wondering who’d turned the lights out. Just Marcus’s opinion, of course. He’d been wrong before.

“I suppose,” he said, “if we stick around long enough, we might find out.”

Squirrel!

I read the first book in this series over 2 1/2 years ago. Since then, my friend Paul has been hounding me, nagging me, and generally pushing me to keep reading them. Insisting that I’m missing out. Etc. Etc. Etc. While I suspected he was right—and even if he wasn’t, I wanted to based on Slow Horses and everything I’d heard from Paul, Jeff at Barbican Station, and from several other fronts.

But we all know how easily distracted I can be. So…here we are 45 months later. And I know when I post this I’m going to get at least one text from Paul, saying things like: “I told you so!” and “It’s about time.”

I deserve both of those messages because he did tell me so; and yes, it is.

What’s Dead Lions About?

Jackson Lamb gets suspicious when an old, low-ranking spy from the Cold War era dies on a public bus. He follows Dickie Bow’s last movements and finds reason to indulge that hunch a little longer, bringing in one of Slough House’s new additions to do some more legwork. What they find doesn’t make him any happier—a bogey-man from the old days might be back. And that can’t be good.

Meanwhile, Spider—pardon me, James—Webb recruits Louisa Guy and Min Harper to help him with a little project he’s got going on. He’s trying to recruit a Russian oligarch—one with political aspirations—as an asset, and he needs some security work done by people who won’t get the attention of any of the bigwigs in MI5. Neither wants to work with Webb, but if they do, there’s a chance…not much of one…but a chance that at least one of them will be the first Slow Horse to move back to Regent’s Park. Both of them are ready to be that one—even at the expense of the other, no matter what relationship might be budding between the two of them.

Best of Both Worlds

While I have an appreciation for British Cold War Spy novels—they’re really not my thing. I’ve tried, both in print and on film—and they just don’t work. But that’s the kind of world that River’s grandfather, O.B., represents—and that Tavener and Lamb represent the end of. They have one foot in that world still, it defines them—but they’re both (especially Tavener) also part of the War on Terror, financial crimes/terrorism, etc. of our current moment. River, Ho, and the rest of the Slow Horses belong to the latter.

What this book does so well is to marry the two schools—we have a very Cold War holdover storyline, and a Putin-era storyline. Now, I can’t imagine that Herron is going to be able to pull this off regularly, but getting to do it in the second novel, solidifying the series’ identity as being able to work in both eras. I thought that was a great move that welcomes in fans of both eras of British Spy Fiction.

So, what did I think about Dead Lions?

So, back in 2019 when I read Slow Horses, I liked it and was impressed by it, but I only gave it 3 Stars. When I listened to the audiobook last year, I think I “got” what Herron was doing a little more. But I still wasn’t as impressed with this as everyone I knew seemed to be. I’m fine with that, but I wondered a bit if I was missing something.

I think I found whatever it was in the pages of Dead Lions. Because…wow. Herron does it all here—there’s some satire, there’s commentary on human existence, on the politics (and espionage) of the Cold War, on the politics (and espionage) of the 2000s, a real and slowly-building tension, there’s subtle wit, less-than-subtle wit, a plot that is impossible to predict, characters that are the most human you’ll find in spy fiction, dialogue and narration that are impossible not to endlessly quote…and fart jokes.

One lesson that readers of the first book should’ve picked up is that they shouldn’t get attached to anyone—look at the number of people assigned to Slough House at the beginning of the book and then at the end. Percentage-wise, it’s safer to be a George R.R. Martin character. Herron ensures that no reader of Dead Lions thinks that’s a fluke. Right now (and I’m ready to be disproven), I figure the only safe characters are Jackson Lamb and (sadly) James Webb—he seems to have the survival capabilities of a hardy cockroach.

Herron surprised me on multiple occasions—I think at this point, I’m going to just permanently suspend my reflex to predict what’s coming when I spend time with him. They weren’t just surprises—they were the kind that I absolutely didn’t even think of expecting—and then in retrospect, I don’t know how I could’ve imagined anything else happening at all.

From time to time, TV Critic Alan Sepinwall will recap an episode saying things like “if we only got X, that would be enough. If we only got Y, that would be enough,” and so on. I felt like that while thinking about this book. If we only got Lamb tracking the final movements of Dickie Bow, that would’ve been enough. If we only got the Louisa Guy/Min Harper storyline, that would’ve been enough. If we only got the Diana Tavener/Jason Webb scene, that would’ve been enough. If we only got River Cartwright going undercover, and everything he goes through…you see where I’m going. Any one of those would’ve been enough for me to realize I need to take this series seriously and get on with reading them all. You combine these points with all those that I decided not to list for space/spoiler reasons? I’m on the verge of being rabid.

Everything I thought was a bug about Slow Horses was a feature, and I see that now. Everything I thought was a fluke about Slow Horses wasn’t. Everything I thought was good about Slow Horses was at least a little bit great. How do I know that? I see all of those elements here and have a much better appreciation for them in Dead Lions so I can better understand its predecessor.

I had other things in my notes that I really wanted to cover. But…I’ve said the essentials, and am at the point where I’m trying to gild an already gilded lily. So, I’m going to leave all that unsaid. Yes, I may have overhyped this and doomed you to not appreciate it. I get that and apologize in advance. Just chalk this up to a new and rabid fanboy—go into this series expecting something good. And then when you’re ready to join the rabid throng, I’ll be waiting for you.

And now, I’ve got to start waiting for messages from Paul.

5 Stars
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.

Slow Horses by Mick Herron: A solid, if slow-building, entry point to a spy series.

By HCNewton

On March 11, 2019

In Fiction, Mick Herron, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Slough House

Slow Horses

by Mick Herron
Series: Slough House, #1
Hardcover, 329 pg.
Soho Constable, 2010
Read: March 1 – 4, 2019

’What you have to bear in mind’–the O.B.’s words–’is that worst sometimes does come to worst.’

The worst had increased exponentially over the last few years.

The O.B.’s words of advice for his grandson turns out to be a bit more. I don’t think Herron placed this on page 2 to be a thesis statement for the book — but it really could be one. River Cartwright was musing about the way things were going for Intelligence officers (and people in related vocations) when it came to predicting what terrorists of various stripes would do. If September 11, July 7, and similar dates have taught Intelligence officers (and people in general), anything it is that sometimes the worst case is actually what happens. (actually, what do I know, maybe it was a thesis for the novel)

Of course, it doesn’t just happen for terrorist attacks — sometimes it happens for someone’s career. Take River Cartwright — after the events on page 2 (and the rest of that first chapter) — and his colleagues. Each of them had worked for the Intelligence service, many of them were rising stars (or stars that had already risen), until they messed up. Sometimes it’s in a large-scale drill, sometimes it was in the course of duty — but they all made an embarrassing mistake, misstep or failure of another stripe, resulting them being assigned to Slough House. In Slough House, all the officers still technically do intelligence work — reviewing transcripts of cell phone conversations for certain words and phrases, for example. But it’s all low priority, low importance work. Far from the important work that the rest of MI-5 (and the rest) do. They’re dubbed the “Slow Horses” and if they aren’t forgotten about by the rest of the service, they’re mocked.

One day, a Slow Horse brushes up against something that approaches “real” work and River takes the results are taken to MI-5’s HQ for them to follow-up on (after making a copy). About the same time that happens, a young Pakistani immigrant is kidnapped by a nationalist group that promises to behead him on the Internet. River decides to try to follow up on this intel, thinking it might lead to the kidnappers. And well, chaos ensues, and let’s leave it there.

Honestly, I had a lot of flashbacks to the show MI-5 (aka Spooks), throughout. The story has a very British spy feel, with more clandestine meetings, history and significant looks than an American spy story (which largely revolve around attractive people shooting things). But these Slow Horses aren’t the type that Nicola Walker, Peter Firth, and Miranda Raison would deal with — at best, they’re the ones those people would pass in the hall. But all of them wanted to get back to the major leagues — they all had the drive, the chip on their shoulder, the need to lose the embarrassment. It makes for an interesting motivation — it’s not just about saving the young man, it’s about them doing it.

The characters are quite a rag-tag bunch, who really don’t like each other much at the beginning — they all know that Slough House is a dead-end and resent being there — and transfer that resentment onto the others stuck there with them. An actual team gets forged through the events of this novel and the characters find things about each other that they can relate to — and maybe even admire.

It’s a solid spy story, and one told with restrained humor — it’s not a comedy by any means, but there are comic sensibilities throughout. Herron could’ve easily turned it into a humorous spy story about rejects trying to save the day. But he plays it pretty straight, there are things to grin about — or at least smile wryly about. But by and large this is a serious story told seriously. And it’s well done — it’s a well-constructed story and by the time the big twist is revealed, you care about the players enough to react appropriately.

But man, it was slow. Once things started happening, it flowed pretty smoothly and quickly. But those early chapters, where Herron was setting up his dominoes, were a slog. It took awhile to figure out why we were spending so much time with X, Y and Z. But when he started knocking the dominoes over? You understood why he’d spent the time and were glad he did. The slow pace of the early chapters were entirely justified, thankfully. Still, I think we could’ve had a better hook early on.

I do think that the later books in the series will be able to build on what’s established here and be less slow, and using the characters we met here get into the action quicker. I’m planning on reading at least a couple more in this series because I did enjoy this one, and think that Herron can build this into a great series. It’s a good entry point into something that promises to be better.

—–

3 Stars