The “slow horses” are the deemed misfits of MI5 exiled to a shabby office building, Slough House. The elite “dogs” reside at Regent’s Park in a sleek modern building.
Becoming a slow horse appears more mischance than incompetence in the spy game. The consequences of mistakes are random depending almost on the whim of superiors.
In a gripping opening River Cartwright desperately attempts to stop a bomber on the London underground. He fails by seconds. Only after my heart had calmed abit did I find out it was a training exercise. He is sent to Slough House to analyze transcripts of surveillance tapes and phone calls. His frustration is high for he believes Spider Webb provided him with a wrong description of the bomber. He was not dismissed from the Service because his grandfather, the O.B. (Old Bastard), was a high ranking member and still has a degree of influence.
Herron is among the few writers I know who can create a plausible driving scenario with ever increasing tension and then equally credibly shatter a reader’s assumptions.
He drives the narrative steadily.
The slow horses fill their days with tedious administrative tasks knowing the Service would be grateful if they would just resign.
Their morning tedium is interrupted by a video on the BBC showing a hooded young man holding up the day’s newspaper with an accompanying message;
we cut his head off forty-eight hours
Written in 2010 the book is close in time to the 2005 suicide bombings on the London Underground by Islamic terrorists.
Regent’s Park has no need for the slow horses as it pursues the terrorists holding the boy. At Regent’s Park, Dinah “Lady Di” Travener, confidently advises a high level meeting that they will save the boy.
At the same time River is caught up in the delivery of a copied memory stick to Regent’s Park. Another slow horse, Sidonie “Sid” Baker, has cleverly created a diversion in a coffee shop allowing her to copy journalist Robert Hobden’s memory stick.
Since no one can remember the last operation conducted by a slow horse, River is convinced there is a significance beyond spying on a journalist.
The ripples from that modest operation involve the slow horses more and more and more in the investigation of the terrorist operation.
The leader of the slow horses, Jackson Lamb, ultimately proves himself capable of being far more than a manager of the slow horses.
Initially, I thought the slow horses a sad lot whose depression over their dismal status had isolated them. Few have friends or family or community. At moments I thought they were consumed by self-pity.
Yet, when action is thrust upon them the slow horses prove ready.
Herron had more real surprises in this book than many purported twisty works of fiction. The twists were brilliantly timed and Herron did not feel the need for a twisty ending.
I do not know if it was an accurate depiction of the British intelligence agency but it felt very real to me.
I am going out to look for the next book in the series.
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