
Published: 27/07/2017

Herron’s flinty and sardonic spy series has reinvigorated the modern espionage novel, combining the realism of le Carre with a very singular brand of black comedy. Slow Horses is our introduction to Jackson Lamb and the hapless inhabitants of Slough House, a haven for washed-up spooks with something to prove.
Waterstones Thriller of the Month for August 2017
Shortlisted for the 2010 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award
The first novel in the acclaimed Jackson Lamb series, described by The Telegraph as one of ‘the twenty greatest spy novels of all time’.
“Let us be clear about this much at least: Slough House is not in Slough, nor is it a house…”
You don't stop being a spook just because you're no longer in the game.
Welcome to Slough House, Regent’s Park, a graveyard for members of the intelligence service no longer in the game – the slow horses. A motley crew of criminals, abusers and troubled souls, banished for various crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal – they all belong to Jackson Lamb.
Jackson Lamb's misfits may be highly trained but they don't run ops, they push paper. When a boy is kidnapped and held hostage and his attackers promise to behead him, live on the net, a chance opens up for the slow horses to redeem themselves and whatever the instructions of the Service, the slow horses aren't going to just sit quiet and watch.
Yet, as they begin to investigate, a more complex web of deceit and double agency begins to opens up. Is the victim who they claim to be? What is the connection with a disgraced journalist? Who else has something to hide?
As the clock ticks, everyone, it seems, is in the game, with dangerous pieces at play.
Born in Newcastle, Mick Herron is an award-winning novelist and short-story writer whose works include the bestselling Jackson Lamb series, the Sarah Tucker/Zoë Boehm series and the standalone novel Reconstruction.
The Jackson Lamb novels in order: Slow Horses, Dead Lions, Real Tigers, Spook Street
Publisher: John Murray Press
ISBN: 9781473674189
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 260 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 26 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
"The finest new crime series this Millennium" - Mail on Sunday
"A pulsating spy thriller" - Daily Express
"Mick Herron is the real deal" - Irish Times
"If you read one spy novel this year, read Real Tigers. Better still, read the whole series" - Andrew Taylor, The Spectator
"Surely among the finest British spy fiction of the past 20 years" - Metro
With his poet's eye for detail, his comic timing and relish for violence, Herron fills a gap that has been yawning ever since Len Deighton retired." - Daily Telegraph
"The most enjoyable spy novel in years." - Mail on Sunday
"A funny, stylish, satirical, gripping story." - The Guardian
"I was delighted to discover that this is merely the first in a captivating series -- Christopher Brookmyre." - The Herald
"The first of his series about MI5 and a character called Jackson Lamb, one of the great monsters of modern fiction. He's a wonderfully cynical writer and there's a lot of dark humour in it. I'm not clever enough to write this sort of thing." - Bernard Cornwell, Daily Express
"I was delighted to discover Mick Herron's riotous Slow Horses series about the black sheep of MI5." - Nick Cohen, Big Issue
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