The latest install net of Jackson Lamb’s series does not disappoint. I found the first part slower than normal. River is at his grandfather’s funeral where he encounters his father - Frank Harkness (a villain from a previous book). What is he up to? Both Lamb and River want revenge. Meanwhile, Louise is looking for Min’s son (Min is a deceased spook). These threads become interwoven and a desperate chase in Wales has serious consequences. Of course, there are sinister reasons behind all of this and MI5 never come out of these books smelling of roses. Lamb is shown to be a master manipulator yet again. There’s also a new character called Lech who is deeply unpleasant but doesn’t deserve the fate that has befallen him. The story is left on an interesting note so we will have to wait for the next instalment so see what that means, Catherine’s storyline keeps developing, too.

‘Joe Country’, is book six, of the ‘Jackson Lamb’ series, and the first that I’ve read. The character relationships are complex, and clearly, they have a lot of history. The thriller is standalone, and after a few chapters, it is easy to understand what the occupants of ‘Slough House’, are. Then relax, and enjoy a well written, political thriller, with satirical humour, flawed, quirky characters and an exciting twisty plot.

‘Slough House’, is the stable for the ‘Slow Horses’, disgraced intelligent operatives that have been put out to grass. Whether their misdemeanours are contrived or real, is not always apparent, but they are remarkably active in the field. Often preventing more incidents, and solving more crimes, than their ‘Regent’s Park’ officially sanctioned counterparts (Joes’)

The prologue to this story intrigues and is described in a particularly evocative, graphic way. The incident in Wales is significant as the plot progresses, and the seemingly disparate threads are melded together.

A new promotion at ‘Regent’s Park, the death of an old spy, a new recruit at ‘Slough House’, and the mysterious disappearance of a deceased ‘Slow Horse’s’ son, are all elements of this complex mystery. Each story is interspersed with the others, although it is not until the book has progressed that the dots to join up in Wales, of course, and the excitement begins.

‘Jackson Lamb’, whose name graces the series, is ‘old school’, politically incorrect, offensive to everyone he encounters, but also canny and clever, and an eminently efficient spymaster, despite his appearance and demeanour.

Action-packed adventures, believable, characters, clever plotting, dark, politically astute humour all make this an addictive, enjoyable book to escape with for an hour or two.

If you can read the series from the beginning to fully appreciate the political astuteness, relationships and setting of this quintessentially, British espionage thriller series.

I received a copy of this book from John Murrays via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I had forgotten how much I love Herron's stories of the "Slow Horses". When I write "love" it is more amazement. These "spooks" have been rejected by the Park or MI5 and unlovely as they are, manage to solve problems their superiors have missed or overlooked.
Sometimes the wit is laugh-out-loud funny, even as knives and guns are drawn from all sides. "We might not be on the same page but at least we are reading the same chapter."
Herron cuts (poor pun indeed) from one piece of action to the next with such speed that sometimes re-reading is necessary. At times I thought I had lost the plot but within a few paragraphs sense was recovered and the adventure and intruige rolled on.
Who dies is sadly indiscriminate; no-one wins in this dark world of spies and subterfuge. It feels real, even to links with modern Britain and a misbehaving member of the royal family.
If you like a pacy and clever story, read this and, like me, wonder if this story will see the end of these rejected but somehow essential spooks. Without them, it seems, Britain would be in a worse mess, security wise, than bears thinking.

Another great plot from Mick Herron. The “slow horses”, agents written off by the spymasters, are again on the case and out-performing their mainstream Secret Service colleagues. The intrigue between the politicians and head of departments is very believable in today’s political climate.

Like his other novels there is the irritating initial description of Slough House at the start, although I am impressed by Herron’s ability to use different metaphors in each story.
It is also pleasing to see that descriptions of the disgusting habits of Jackson Lamb, head of the “slow horses”, have been drastically reduced. They were always totally unnecessary.

A great read!!

Joe Country is the sixth Slough House novel. I would definitely recommend reading them in order, but if you’re coming to them for the first time, this is the setup.

The staff of Slough House are all employees of the intelligence services who have messed up in one way or another. Rather than being sacked, they are exiled from active service and the headquarters at Regents Park.

They are condemned to do mind-numbing tasks in a dank, dark building, under the supervision of Jackson Lamb, a former agent who appears offensive and incompetent but retains a mysterious aura of invincibility. Somehow, despite their remit, the so-called ‘slow horses’ find themselves intermittently having to behave almost like real agents, but with none of the supporting infrastructure.

Herron has kept things fresh throughout the series by bringing in new people to replace those that leave (no spoilers but a stint at Slough House doesn’t generally end in glittering promotion or quiet retirement). In Joe Country, a new member has joined the team, and the reasons for his disgrace gradually emerge and are fully exploited by Jackson Lamb.

Meanwhile Diana Taverner, the head of the service at Regents Park, is at the heart of political intrigue, sparring with a disgraced former politician with fluffy blond hair and a ruthless eye for self-aggrandisement. (The previous novel, London Rules, dealt head-on and hilariously with our current sorry political landscape.)

However, the main focus is on the pasts of the Slow Horses. Disruption at an agent’s funeral and the ringing of a dead colleague’s phone spark them into action. The prologue sets up the tension by giving you a hint of how it ends – that two of their team will die as they confront a dangerous enemy in rural Wales.

I should have loved this, but didn’t quite, and I’m not sure why. I don’t think it’s less well written than the others, and it’s still a good read. Perhaps, despite the changing cast of characters, those who remain are a little too familiar. Bringing up relationships which featured in earlier novels increased the sense of déjà vu. I also worry that Jackson Lamb, with his farts and his offensive comments and his uncanny omniscience, is edging close to becoming a caricature of himself.

There is a hint at the end of this book that Slough House might be about to get a shake-up. I’m interested to see where this series goes next.
*
I received a copy of Joe Country from the publisher via Netgalley.

The slow horses ride again! Compelling reading in this ridiculous but oh so plausible storyline of the not quite ex spooks who work with Lamb

It’s fast it’s insane and it’s really quite addictive- I can’t wait for the next outing and highly recommend this book

An great outing by the king of spooks. I found this book much easier to read than the precedents and the pace more interesting.

A well written, pacy spy thriller with plenty of action and questions of who can be trusted and who is in charge. The action centres around a backwater of MI5, where personnel who have blotted their copybooks are put out to grass where they can't do too much harm. To avoid spoilers, let's say that something crops up to provoke interest, and events start to spiral out of control. The desk-bound find themselves out in the field and in a great deal of danger. Can fieldcraft save their lives and can they rescue the son of a former colleague who happened to see too much and sought to profit from it? The language Mick Herron uses is clever and just avoids being mannered. And who knew that sleepy Wales could accommodate such excitement? I will certainly be looking out for more from this author.

Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb faces another threat to his ‘Joes’ and using his customary interpersonal skills motives his team in their efforts.
This is the sixth book in the series and, like Jed Mercurio, Herron is not afraid to lose fairly well drawn characters if it aids the plot. It certainly leaves the reader unsure of what might transpire next.
I think I have commented before that this would make good television if producers are willing to follow the lead of Line Of Duty, Berlin Station and Bosch. Ken Stott is firmly in my mind as Jackson Lamb.
Whilst useful, the previous novels are not a required read to understand Joe Country.
I guess the only part of Herron’s series that I’d like to change is that few if any of the characters have any real joy from their lives. The Slow Horses seem to continually inhabit a world of pain and suffering.
Makes good drama though.
This book was provided as an advance copy by the publisher in return for an honest review.
NB This book was reviewed on Aaazon on 23 June 2019.

Book six in the magnificent Slough House series is probably the bleakest yet - I finished this feeling as numb as if I myself had been battling through the snow-storm that serves as a backdrop for all the action. We know from the start that at least two of the Slow Horses won’t make it out, and since Herron has proved in the earlier books that no one is safe, the wait to find out who was unbearable - but made for one hell of a thriller.

I haven’t read The List or The Drop, which are the novellas about different characters in the SH world, and explain how Alec/Lech Wicinski ends up a Slow Horse; I didn’t think this was a problem as the backstory is filled in, but might come back to them later - they’re currently over-priced for their length.
I was disappointed to be declined an ARC of this a few weeks ago, but would’ve been happy to buy it, then saw it up there again and got lucky second time, giving me the excuse to put it to the top of my TBR.

It deep winter and the Slow Horses are trudging through their days of apparently meaningless makework imposed by their boss, the insufferable Jackson Lamb. When Louisa, still mourning the future she had planned with Min Harper more than the man himself, receives a call from his ex-wife to say their teenage son has gone missing, she sees links to the reappearance of River’s evil father, mercenary Frank Harness, and sets off to find him. When she goes dark, her colleagues will follow her trail to snowbound Wales, reluctantly sanctioned by Lamb, who won’t let anyone mess with his Joes.

This is the wittiest modern thriller series out there - the prose is breathtaking in its dry savagery, skewering primarily the British political situation and its leaders, but really no one is spared. The Security Services are depicted as just another agency to spare the the elite from embarrassment, with cover-ups as routine as housekeeping. The secondary plot - Lech’s attempts to find out who had him banished by putting child porn onto his laptop - with horrific consequences, demonstrated how callous the higher-ups are even when dealing with their own, and Lamb can be just as bad.

There is humour here, but it’s pretty grim: the world seen through the eyes of Roddy Ho is as light as it gets, but I love that kind of black comedy which is pretty rare in thriller fiction. There are thinly disguised caricatures of politicians, and not just British (the mention of a visit by a bed wetting narcissist had me snorting into my wine). Something awful happens to a bird in the beginning - is this a new trend? - Black Summer did this too - but that’s the only harm suffered by animals. I can’t say the same about people, mind.

I definitely recommend reading these books in order from the beginning, as while each is a separate story, you need to know each character’s history to understand why such a bunch of misfits will put their lives on the line for each other. There are clearly more Machiavellian schemes ahead for the team to navigate and I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc which allowed me to give an honest review. Joe Country is available now.

A real belter of a book. I would highly recommend reading the previous titles in the series not just to get a handle on the brilliant back stories, but because you’ve missed out on some superb books. One thing I love is that the author isn’t averse to killing off the main characters every so often so don’t get too attached. Another is the sharp-witted humour that resonates from every page. Cracking stuff.

I adore Mick Herron’s writing. It is acerbic, witty and coruscating. This is prose you can wallow in; feel it as it seeps slickly through your fingers leaving a residue of mingled pleasure and pain that never for a minute allows you to forget that spying is a deadly business.

The Slough House joes may be an oddball mixture of alcoholics, failures, psychopaths and narcissists, but they are Jackson Lamb’s joes. This bunch of failures, relegated from the more refined echelons of Regent’s Park, will never rest until they have f***ed up the clandestine espionage plan that no-one is supposed to know about.

Herron is spot on in his depiction of the abhorrent antics of the ruling classes, their foibles and sense of droit de seigneur. Royalty, politicians, Brexiteers all get it in the neck without fear or favour. Lamb himself continues to be the all-knowing, fearsome, grossly obese farting monster he always was.

In Joe Country Herron shows us that is not afraid to kill his darlings and we know from the start that not all the slow horses will make it home from their incursion into Wales.

Alec. ‘Lech’ Wicinski is a new slow horse. Sent to Slough House from Regent’s Park, an intelligence analyst accused of an unspeakable crime and loudly protesting his innocence, Wicinski is still sharp enough to know when narcissist Roddy Ho is poking about in his backstory.

Louisa Guy is getting over Min Harper’s death when she takes a call from Harper’s wife Claire. Claire and Min’s son, Lucas has gone meeting and she wants Louise to find him. After all, she tells Louise, ‘you were sleeping with him’ so clearly she owes Claire a favour.

River Cartwright is trying to handle his mother as he takes charge of burying his grandfather and former spook, whom he always thinks of as the ‘old Bastard’. The presence of his father skulking around the churchyard isn’t helping. Emma Flyte has been turfed out of Regent’s Park by newly promoted Diana Taverner and offered Slough House as a consolation. Emma is quick to tell Diana exactly what she can do with her job offer and quits.

When Louisa goes off grid, Lamb sends his Slow Horses out to Wales to find her and things pretty much go downhill from there. As ever though, after a mixture of screw ups, laugh out loud moments, violent deaths and some spectacular knowledge divination by Lamb, the world is set, more or less, to rights again.

The joy of Joe Country is the sheer blissfulness of Mick Herron’s characters. His willingness to take serious pot shots at the incompetence of the establishment not excepting Brexit and its politicians; his black, satirical humour – and most of all that prose. Rich, dark, intense and utterly, completely, wonderful.

Verdict: If you haven’t read the Slough House series you are missing something really exceptional. Herron has done it again. Joe Country is a brilliant, blissful book to die for.

Joe Country is the sixth full-length visit to Slough House and I have read them all. I’ve started to look forward to these visits to its grimy environs but with some slowly brewing reservations.

After all these visits there are some characters that I still do not really have much of a handle on, in fact I would say that this is Herron’s main failing: his inconsistency in creating an interior life for some of his creations. I’ve got some idea of who Catherine Standish might be, but not a clue about River Cartwright who seems about as exciting as a flat glass of fizzy pop. On the other hand, Shirley Dander seems to be painted with a very broad brush.

Then we have Jackson Lamb, the presence that seeps through the novels like the whiff from Slough House’s dirty carpet. Lamb is unevenly drawn, but here it is the pantomimic stabs at humour that confuse and dilute what would otherwise be a fascinating character (see his scene with Lech in this novel for evidence of Lamb’s small-p political acumen).

The structure of these novels is now set: there is one main issue and the penultimate chapter will be one laborious denouement flicking endlessly between several viewpoints until you just want everyone dead so it comes to an end.

What some readers may be less aware of is that the six novels are not the only visits to Slough House. There are also two novellas, The List and The Drop, which actually provide a slice of the backstory of Hannah Weiss.


Oh and more than anything I wish that someone would teach Herron and/or his copy editor when to use semicolons.

Whilst these novels remain enjoyable and Herron takes pains to create the down-at-heel atmosphere of Slough House they are starting to wear a bit thin.

4.5 Stars
The sixth book in the Slough House series begins with a barn in Wales being set on fire. Two bodies are inside & I was on the edge of my seat from the start. Meanwhile, in London Diana "Lady Di" Taverner, Britain's head of the Secret Service, is up to her usual machinations - wheeling and dealing with politicians to get more funding for the "spooks". In Slough House memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, who we met in the short story The Drop, whose sins make him outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career.
Another enthralling gripping read from the author, which I found very hard to put down. This series goes from strength to strength & I can't wait for more. Whilst I loved the book I think anyone strating with this book would find it a little confusing as strands & threads from earlier books do continue through the series so I’d recommend starting from the start
My honest review is for a special copy I voluntarily read

I'd like to say that all the old crew are in Slough House but the rate of natural (or unnatural) wastage is such as to have Health and Safety worried. Roderick Ho's there though, narcissistic as ever, and so's Louisa Guy. She's getting over the death of Min Harper to the extent that she's not ''too'' concerned when she gets a phone call from Clare Harper, Min's wife. River Cartwright has got death on his mind too, but in his case it's the impending demise of his beloved grandfather and former spook, the OB. Diana Taverner has taken over from Claude Whelan as First Desk at Regent Park and she's going to make changes: one of the first is a shock. An argument with Emma Flyte sees the head dog departing the service. Meanwhile at Slough House, Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Jackson Lamb is offensive as ever and Shirley Dander and J K Coe do their best to remain unnoticed, the latter by saying nothing.

If you're a newcomer to the series you'll wonder if you really are going to have to deal with a cast of thousands. It's rather like listening to an episode of ''The Archers'' and hoping to understand what's going on. On the other hand, if you're an established reader, you'll be nodding your head in delight as you meet old friends. Mick Herron's good at giving just enough backstory so that a new reader isn't going to feel completely at sea but quite honestly you'd be better starting at the beginning of the series and having the pleasure of reading the books in the proper order.

There's a new addition to the slow horses. Lech Wicinski prefers to be called Alec, but it's not something that he needs to be worried about as no one is going to want to talk to him when they realise that he's been moved out of Regent Park (pending an investigation, naturally) because kiddy porn has apparently been found on his work laptop. He denies it, but then he would, wouldn't he?

That phone call Louisa Guy got from Claire Harper was to arrange that the pair should meet. Guy's not ''keen'' - what they have in common is not exactly something they're going to discuss - but goes along out of politeness only to find herself dragged into tracing Min's teenage son, Lucas, who's done a runner. It sounds simple and it doesn't sound ''unreasonable''. How can she refuse? She probably should have done.

For me, thrillers have three important elements: the characters, the plot and the writing. The characters in this series are wonderful, from the brutally offensive Jackson Lamb (with each book you think he can't get any worse, but he can and does), to the well-mannered Catherine Standish who does her best against outrageous odds to maintain standards, to Roddy Ho, who is regularly the source of some of the funniest writing I've read in a long time. Each character is brilliant: there isn't a weak one amongst them.

If I have a quibble with this series, it's with the plots. Essentially they're a vehicle for the characters. The slow horses blunder though something seeming almost to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory but coming through at the end only for Jackson Lamb to pull out a twist which stands much of the story on its head. Predictable? Yes, it is, but it's always well done and frankly I don't care and it's not just down to the characters. The writing is superb. Herron has been compared to [[:Category:John le Carre|John le Carre]], but I prefer Herron, who has all the skills of le Carre but with better dialogue. He writes the full range of human emotions and is - on occasions - gloriously, uproariously funny.

Read the series. It's brilliant and I'd like to thank the publishers for making a copy available to the Bookbag.

Rogues Gallery

For this reader one of the most pleasurable parts of a Slough House novel is the opening chapter; the author always manages to intrigue and surprise – and this story is no exception. After only a few pages, the reader is left with the sickening understanding that two Slough House operatives, a man and a woman, will be dead before the end of the story, their bodies incinerated in a burning barn. This foreshadowing of fatal inevitability arouses a series of questions: who are the dead pair? How have they come to this pass? Do the deaths really happen? Is the writer playing one of his not infrequent tricks on the reader?

Mick Herron’s plots are terrific, exciting and inventive – there is no doubt, but his narrative is second to none. He sustains a sense of disquiet in the reader’s mind right to the bittersweet conclusion. There are a number of plots tumbling about here, River’s unfinished business with his renegade father; the travails of the new recruit to Slough House, apparently sent because of a penchant for paedophilia; Catherine Standish’s fantasies about her daily purchase of a bottle of wine.

One piece of advice: it would help any reader of this volume to read first the others in the sequence. Failing that, the immediate predecessor, London Rules, and the novella, The Drop, will help explain a lot of what is going on.

I'm a huge fan of the Jackson Lamb series. This did not disappoint. In my opinion, this series goes from strength to strength. This has as its focal point, the continuing saga of River Cartwright's complex family life, but also sweeps through Brexit, the current political chaos and the backgrounds of some of the other characters as it develops. Herron is a master of juggling plot lines without losing any of the tension that makes this series so compulsively readable. This is, as ever, darkly funny along with being brutal, sad and clever. It's perfection.

It's terrific to be back in this beautifully written world, and enjoy fully developed, flawed characters. Two people are killed right at the opening and we wait for it to be picked up... the killers are on a mission.
it all happens, as in previous books this terrific series, in this out of the way place, slough house, where agents in secret service who have messed up, are consumed while CF their cases are investigated. Among them are various flaws of inadequate personalities, carolybs drinking c again, lamb is braised with duck.

This is one of the best book series around at the moment. Mick Herron has created a clever, darkly entertaining world of spies and spooks. This is book six and I’d recommend you start at the beginning with Slow Horses, you really won’t regret it.

I don't want to say anything about the plot because of the risk of spoilers, suffice to say this is another cracking tale of MI5’s misfits and disappointments. The writing is excellent and the plot is admirably structured. Witty and genuinely exciting, you are never quite sure who will survive until the end of the book and what an ending!
In essence this is another first rate Slough House book. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and John Murray Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Reading a Slow Horses novel is such an enjoyable experience that it is easy to overlook the quality of Mick Herron’s writing. This, the sixth in the series, is as fresh and as well-written as its predecessors and just as ingenious. The author is often compared to other writers in the genre, but I think he is a true original. What marks him out is his ability to combine a host of one-liners and comic situations with periods of real suspense and passages (such as Catherine’s struggles with alcoholism) of genuine poignancy. There are not many writers who can merge such disparate elements into a single novel and make it work.

But there is so much more to these books. The behaviour of the Park personnel, driven by ruthless self-interest and political expediency is in marked contrast to the Slow Horses where (perhaps with the exception of Rodney Ho), loyalty, comradeship and a collective belief in doing what is right are the values they share. You can’t help but wonder whether MH is making a statement on the current lamentable state of politics in the UK and the dangerous divisions which are leading us towards the self-destruct button.

As always, the plot is fairly outrageous but still just about believable and unlike previous novels in the series, most of the action takes place in the field (Joe Country for the spooks or Wales to the rest of us). If I was being hypercritical I might have preferred a few less cliff-hangers in the South Wales snow and more about the shenanigans in Regents Park where Lady Di is engaged in her usual Machiavellian antics and at Slough House where the wonderful Jackson Lamb continues (just about) to hold his team together. However, that is nit-picking and shouldn’t detract from another fine addition to the series.

I am very grateful to Net Gallery and John Murray books for sending me a pre-publication copy of this book in return for an honest review.