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Slow Horses
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2010
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Intelligence agent River Cartwright, after being banished from high-profile work for incompetence, suspects a prominant British journalist with ties to an extremist party of being behind the kidnapping of a Muslim teenager. - (Baker & Taylor)

THE BOOK BEHIND THE FIRST SEASON OF SLOW HORSES, THE APPLE ORIGINAL SERIES STARRING GARY OLDMAN IN HIS EMMY-NOMINATED ROLE AS JACKSON LAMB.

Welcome to the thrilling and unnervingly prescient world of the slow horses. This team of MI5 agents is united by one common bond: They've screwed up royally and will do anything to redeem themselves.

This deluxe edition of a modern classic includes a foreword by the author, discussion questions for book clubs, and an exclusive short story featuring the slow horses.

London, England: Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they have in common, though, is they want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there-even if it means having to collaborate with one another.

When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the Internet, the slow horses see an opportunity to redeem themselves. But is the victim really who he appears to be? - (Random House, Inc.)

Author Biography

Mick Herron is a British novelist and short story writer who was born in Newcastle and studied English at Oxford. He is the author of six books in the Slough House series (Slow Horses, Dead Lions, Real Tigers, Spook Street, London Rules, and the novella The List) and four Oxford mysteries (Down Cemetery Road, The Last Voice You Hear, Why We Die, and Smoke and Whispers), as well as the standalone novels Reconstruction, Nobody Walks and This Is What Happened. His work has won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, and the Ellery Queen Readers Award, and been nominated for the Macavity, Barry, Shamus, and Theakstons Novel of the Year Awards. He currently lives in Oxford and writes full-time. - (Random House, Inc.)

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Slow Horses
Rating:3.6 stars
Publication date:2010

About the author:

Mick Herron is a British novelist and short story writer who was born in Newcastle and studied English at Oxford. He is the author of six books in the Slough House series (Slow Horses, Dead Lions, Real Tigers, Spook Street, London Rules, and the novella The List) and four Oxford mysteries (Down Cemetery Road, The Last Voice You Hear, Why We Die, and Smoke and Whispers), as well as the standalone novels Reconstruction, Nobody Walks and This Is What Happened. His work has won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, and the Ellery Queen Readers Award, and been nominated for the Macavity, Barry, Shamus, and Theakstons Novel of the Year Awards. He currently lives in Oxford and writes full-time.

Description:

THE BOOK BEHIND THE FIRST SEASON OF SLOW HORSES, THE APPLE ORIGINAL SERIES STARRING GARY OLDMAN IN HIS EMMY-NOMINATED ROLE AS JACKSON LAMB.

Welcome to the thrilling and unnervingly prescient world of the slow horses. This team of MI5 agents is united by one common bond: They've screwed up royally and will do anything to redeem themselves.

This deluxe edition of a modern classic includes a foreword by the author, discussion questions for book clubs, and an exclusive short story featuring the slow horses.
London, England: Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they have in common, though, is they want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another.
When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the Internet, the slow horses see an opportunity to redeem themselves. But is the victim really who he appears to be?
Reviews:

of 2015
Nancy Pearl "Best Reads"
The Guardian
"A funny, stylish, satirical, gripping story . . . Memorably seedy characters, sharp dialogue, complex plot. I'm hooked."
J.D. Singh, CBC's The Next Chapter
"This is blackly funny, tense and worryingly plausible. The most enjoyable British spy novel in years." --Mail on Sunday, Five-star Review"These are terrific novels. The writing is very good. The sense of humour is there, and there's a certain amount of skepticism as well, which keeps you wanting to read."
Booklist
"Slow Horses is a fine thriller . . . it's also a wonderfully funny, farcical, deeply cynical skewering of politics, bureaucrats, turf wars, and the Great Game."
The New York Times Book Review
"Mick Herron never tells a suspense story in the expected way . . . In Herron's book, there is no hiding under the desk."
The Washington Post
"Stylish and engaging."
Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"[A] masterful thriller . . . The intricate plot, coupled with Herron's breezy writing style, results in superior entertainment that makes most other novels of suspense appear dull and slow-witted by comparison."
Booklist, Starred Review
"Like a good movie . . . grabs the reader from the first page."
Publisher's Weekly

April 26, 2010
Banished to London’s Slough House—the junkyard for disgraced MI5 agents—for botching a high-profile training exercise, River Cartwright spends his days sifting through garbage and transcribing phone conversations in Herron’s riveting spy thriller. His boss, Jackson Lamb, who governs Slough House as if it’s his own kingdom, makes sure the “slow horses” know they’ll never get back to high-profile work at Regent’s Park. River, bored with his tedious assignments, discovers that one of his fellow agents has been lifting information from Robert Hobden, a well-known journalist. When a Muslim teenager is kidnapped and a video promising to decapitate him appears online, River wonders if it’s connected to Hobden, who has ties to the extremist British Patriotic Party. Herron (Smoke & Whispers) avoids the easy cliché of misfits banding together to right a wrong, instead painting his slow horses as complex characters who are just as fallible as their “faster” counterparts.

Booklist

May 1, 2010
Slough House is an administrative oubliette for British intelligence. Spooks who have screwed up in a big way are assigned there, and no one has ever been returned to real service. In spook speak, the denizens of Slough House are Slow Horses, objects of scorn, fridge magnets. River Cartwright, the ostensible protagonist of this crackling good spy thriller-farce, wants to be the first Slow Horse to force his own resurrection to MI5, and he sees his chance when an apparently inept right-wing group kidnaps a Pakistani youth and threatens to behead him on a live webcast. Saying more about the plot might spoil the fun. Herrons sixth novel is filled with acidic wit and engaging misdirection, and readers will need to adjust to his narrative style; but the rewards are great. Slow Horses is a fine thriller with enough suspense, double-dealing, and mayhem for thriller devotees; but its also a wonderfully funny, farcical, deeply cynical skewering of politics, bureaucrats, turf wars, and the Great Game.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

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