This is an excellent MI5 thriller set in modern day London. The slow horses are a set of disgraced MI5 agents who, rather than being dismissed, have been transferred to Slough House.

Each slow horse has a chip on his or her shoulder, they do not like one another, nor know much about each other. They maintain the secrets of why exactly they have been sent to Slough House, and these are gradually revealed throughout the book. However, that is a sub-plot. The main excitement emerges as they become embroiled in a terrorist incident.

The pace is fast, the style is slick and I could not wait to keep reading it.

I first discovered this series with the fourth novel - Spook Street - so it's been fun to go back to the beginning and see how River Cartwright ended up in Slough House.

Slow Horses is as strong as the later books - a brilliant mix of clever plotting, dark humour and complex, ambiguous characters. Jackson Lamb is a bit more low key than in the later books. He's like a reality star who's a surprise hit and can't help acting up to his persona - but that is entirely believable.

I can't speak highly enough of these novels - wherever you start.

A die hard le Carré fan like me ought to have loved this. But in fact it took me a while to get into, as the two-week reading time would suggest.

I found the unsympathetic portrayals of the eponymous Slow Horses a bit heavy handed, to tell the truth. I know they are meant to be anti-heroes - and this does make their eventual redemption more meaningful - but are they meant to be so dislikeable?

That being said the previously soporific pace does start to pick up around two-thirds of the way through and the various strands of the plot do resolve themselves in a way that is both satisfying and sets up future novels in the series nicely.

I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher John Murray via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.

Not my usual reading genre but its always nice to try something new!
Im not a James Bond fan and thankfully the protagonist Jackson Lamb is no James Bond!
The writing style is quite unique so it will be the kind of book that you will take to or not, not much middle ground for me anyway!
The series of books are entered around a group of outcast MI5 spooks who have been relegated to pen pushers and office workers due to botched carers. Reject spooks versus the real thing!
But looks can be deceiving and Jackson Lamb proves that he shouldn't be underestimated!
With humour throughout and some interesting characters it makes for a quick entertaining read

Mick Herron's first entry into the Jackson Lamb/Slough House series is in some aspects a little more low-key compared to how it later develops and is quite slow to get started, but already many of the character traits and the dry sardonic look at the British Intelligence Services is very much in place in Slow Horses. Having said that, after it has taken some time to establish the nature of the dumping ground for failed spooks that is Slough House however, and the types of characters consigned there through incompetence, bad luck and well, personality problems. There is nothing low-key either about an MI5 undercover operation that goes badly wrong, and plenty of action and drama that results in a number of casualties among the ranks of the slow horses.

As far as the operation goes, well it's still relevant today even if the post-9/11 world of terrorist activities has moved on and expanded considerably beyond this. A young man has been abducted, put in an orange jumpsuit and hooded, bound to a chair and threatened with execution by a group who claim that they are going to behead the young man live on the internet. It's a familiar situation now, but this one is reportedly taking place on UK soil. Diana Taverner, Second Chair of MI5, knows that resolving this situation could improve the standing of the British Intelligence Service with the general public after a number of recent failings.

But what's that got to do with Slough House? Jackson Lamb's little outfit aren't usually tasked with anything more than sifting through rubbish (in some cases literally), but simmering resentment over what some feel to be an unjust fate, has led them to perhaps over-estimate their capabilities and poke their noses into affairs that they'd be better off leaving well alone. Particularly if 'Lady Di' is involved. Unfortunately from them, when the Five operation inevitably goes belly up - and it does big time - someone has to take the blame, and the slow horses at Slough House are conveniently placed at the end of the buck-passing line. Them's the London Rules. He might not look like much but Jackson Lamb doesn't always play by the rules, is better than others at playing London Rules, and clearly knows where the bodies are buried, which makes him still a dangerous adversary.

Any reader coming back to Slow Horses having been introduced to the Jackson Lamb series later in it run will only recognise about half the characters. Since no one has ever made the journey out of Slough House back to Regent's Park, you can presume that casualty numbers are surprisingly high for a 'team' (I use the term loosely) of no-hopers who aren't trusted to actually run any ops, but you'll have to read the other books to find out some of the bizarre and shocking circumstances in which that takes place. Here in Slow Horses, despite the slow introduction, Mick Herron's wonderful creation quickly engages with humour and wonderful character detail, with wonderful observations about British society, attitudes, politics and journalism. This is a great start to the series and it only gets better as we go along.

I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Now I know. Fast paced, dark and funny. A totally dynamic page turning thriller. It leaves you wanting more.

I loved this! I was looking for a new thriller series to start, and wanted to get away from the many flawed detective novels.
So I fell upon this thrilling modern spy series and immediately fell under the spell. Interesting characters and well written. The perfect opening. Now looking forward to the next installment

Rather slow start but interesting enough to carry on with the series.

Unfortunately I was unable to read this as the download scrambled a lot of the text especially the dates which only showed as rectangular symbols, am sure it was an excellent book though.

I liked the book, I liked the premise (though it worries me Slough house might actually exist) and the “plot" was immersive. Within it some characters and storylines were sufficiently fleshed out but not all and bypassing that aspect meant a certain amount of “speed reading” to get back on track. A good set up for what I hope proves to be an improving series.

Slough House is the dumping ground for spies who mess up.

River Cartwright has screwed up big time and is now at Slough House as one of the Slow Horses. They are a bunch of misfits who are not deemed capable of anything more than transcribing and doing other mundane chores.

That is until a young man is kidnapped and his kidnappers threaten to behead him live on the internet. Is the victim who he appears to be and is there a connection between the kidnappers and a disgraced journalist. River and the Slow Horses team will find out.

This is the second book in this series I have read. The first one was poor but this one is worse. It is so slow, disjointed, boring and worthy of so many other adjectives - none of which is complimentary.

These books have so much potential as the synopsis always sounds great, but it fails to deliver.

A big disappointment.

Chester

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

I would like to preface this review by stating that I am a committed John Le Carre reader having read nearly all his books. That having been said this book is well constructed, and is a unique Mick Herron style and I enjoyed reading it and am now looking forward to reading the rest of the series. Set in London, the book is fast paced and shows through its well descripted characters the various hierarchies within the intelligence services highlighting a cadre of agents who have fallen foul of their superiors and hope to regain the motivation that originally made them seek positions in MI5. A mischievous and ill fated attempt by a high ranking officer to fake the death by beheading of an innocent Muslim student allows them a chance to try and change the outcome an hence regain their prestige. Highly recommended

Another interesting book to review - it took me quite a while to appreciate the skill of the author's writing, as there is a certain idiosyncrasy about the writing that takes some time to appreciate. There may also be a slight echo of 'writing in the style of....' about the narrative. However, once tuned into the writing style this book repaid the effort. There was a coherent and satisfying plot, with enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. The subtle use of a rather wry humour is also a real bonus and very entertaining without sounding a false note in a perfectly serious story. The themes in the book follow fairly conventional areas: MI5; spooks; and conspiracies at the heart of government, but also include the very contemporary issues of islamophobia and violent right wing extremism without getting overwhelmed by any sense of 'preachiness'. Strongly recommended.

I have chosen to review this book after having read all five of this series. This one being the first. I did not love this book to start with. I want to like the characters in a book and to empathise with them, I could not do that. I was irritated by Jackson Lamb, an absolutely horrible and quite, in my opinion, unrealistic character. However, as the book went on this collection of characters who have been sidelined by the security services and put into a backwater office where they 'could do no harm' began to interest me. The total absurdity of the situation they are in and the parallels with John Le Carre's books began to come out. Mick Herron writes extremely well, he gets inside his characters and manages to create a series of fascinating idiosyncratic characters. The author's use of language is unique. This story has a good plot but it is so much more about the interrelationships between the characters. By the end of this book I was hooked and I just wanted to read more.

My thanks to NetGalley and John Murray Press for a review copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.
It is refreshing to come across an author who to quote some critics "... is the next John Le Carre." but even better to find that one agrees with them. Mick Herrons characters are no James Bond or Pussy Galore, they are egotistical, overly self aware and suffering from a lack of real self confidence. Banished to 'Slough House' for past misdemeanors squabally over their position in the service and all attempting to re-climb the oleaginous greasy pole. They do not invite sympathy or love but they do pull you into the murky and unglamourous seedy underbelly of the world of the service. Read and enjoy and the benefit, if like me you are late to the feast by gorging yourself on the five other 'Slough House' publications.

Spy stories are not my genre, it was a mistake to try to read this book.

Brilliant - an utterly addictive series and so thrilled to have discovered it when it was several books in, although this did result in a serious reduction in my sleep hours for a while!

We're so used to the spy hero stereotype that at first it's hard to adjust to meeting a collection of broken, non-successes. We are trained to want derring-do and clever gadgets, but these 'heroes' are light on gadgets and undertake the derring-do in a scatterbrained, up-and-at-em way that would have Bond weeping into his martini.

That said, each character is so beautifully drawn that you can't help but connect, to will them on and to feel their bitter frustrations when despite unaccountable success, they are still deemed the cast-offs the Service would prefer to pretend doesn't exist.

In this story, River Cartwright is our hero and when he cocks up (quite spectacularly) and is banished to the place bad agents go to fade away (or quit) you feel his pain. The opportunity to redeem himself seems heaven sent - but will his actions simply dig the hole he is in ever deeper? River is a wannabee Bond, and we want him to be that too, but his reality is far from his fantasy - and we love him all the more for it.

A great read and as soon as you put it down you'll pick up the next - Dead Lions.

A brilliant start to what I hope with be a lengthy series. Mick Herron has created a character in Jackson Lamb who is unlike any in the genre of "spy fiction". Fascinating plot and characterisation but with a comic element unusual in a thriller

Do we need an anti-terrorist organisation if there is no terrorist threat? How can we make sure we keep our jobs in an anti-terrorist organisation? Make sure there is a terrorist threat.

Mick Herron’s contemporary espionage novels are currently, and deservedly, very popular. The Slow Horses of the title are the denizens of Slough House, a dumping ground for spies who have made bad mistakes. All hope their stay is temporary, but no-one escapes Slough House and the boringly routine paperwork done there. No-one too can escape the crapulous, flatulent, corpulent, seedy Jackson Lamb, the lord of Slough House.

What did I enjoy about this immensely enjoyable novel? I loved the clever, intricate plot, its thrilling, twists and turns. I loved how the agents of Slough House would run and re-run their fatal error in their minds, doggedly imagining how things could have worked out happily different. I loved the shocking skulduggery of the spymasters of MI5. Most of all I loved the gradual unveiling of the real Jackson Lamb.

This is the first in the new series by Mick Herron about MI5, Slough House is a dumping ground for members of the intelligence service who've screwed up and Herron puts together a wonderful read with humour and series a serious storyline. He had me laughing outloud at Lamb who is in charge of Slough House and its misfits. A thoroughly enjoyable read and I shall by starting the second installment tonight.