One word? Binge-worthy! I’m reading this first book in the series a second time with a certain amount of anticipation.   It came up on the 4-Mystery Addicts reading group in a general discussion of favorite authors from 2020. (These are authors the members have read in the last year and prior – not necessarily new authors or published in 2020.) I don’t remember it being particularly good novel but … okay – we’ll give it a try.

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Slow Horses
by Mick Herron
2010 / 336 pages
read by Gerard Doyle 19h 46m
rating – A+++ / crime (spy novel)
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Anyway,  I do remember having read this eons ago and it was still in my library of Audible books, but I don’t have a blog entry for it so who knows?  (Aha! It was published in 2010 so I probably read it then or shortly thereafter –  all is now explained.) 

Someone mentioned that the writing was beautiful and that there was lots of humor, but that the characters were hard to keep straight.  Yeah?

Whatever, I started again, just listening at first, but by Chapter 5 I was confused about who was speaking.  The first chapters contain back stories on quite a number of characters, spies, all working out of a place called “Slough House.” This is a kind of Siberia for M15 agents who screwed up on the job but aren’t fired. They’re “slow horses.” It’s figured they’ll resign the service before long if they are assigned to Slough House.

 Although I love listening, I think this may be one of those books which is better read. I ended up doing both. There are no easily discernible audio breaks for scene changes, rather there are many characters who simply pop in and out of various scenes as the tension builds. There is interesting background stories on several characters though.

This is a real spy novel where a college student who looks foreign is kidnapped by an unknown terrorist group which then announces their deed. The Slough House agents are called into action while their leader, Lamb, works things out in his own special way.

Yes, it’s a wonderfully well written book with fascinating characters and a nicely twisted plot. It’s absolutely hilarious in places.

I’ve got a new series to binge on!!! Yay!