Slow Horses - Mick Herron
I'm not really into the spy type of literature (yet), so I can't really relate to other comments that offered perhaps a bit more of perspective on why this novel is relevant.
It starts very slowly, with a group of spies that fell into disgrace are are moved into "Slough House", a boring assignment designed to force them to quit. Each section takes a slightly different perspective.
The protagonist, River, is kicked out from the big leagues because of screwing up a training (although the fault was his partner's). But he is not fired because his grand dad is a big name in the intelligence community of the UK.
Characters start piling up. From the almost unbearable Lamb (fat, with bad manners) to Sid, an attractive redheaded.
As time progresses, we learn about the kidnapping of a young muslim (although, credit to the author for not disclosing information ahead of time, I assumed he was a what boy). And complications start piling up. Things happen that shouldn't, people start receiving assignments which are extraordinary, tension keeps piling up.
At some point we learn that Sid is spying on River, that River was sent to track a journalist who could be linked to the kidnappers. The story keeps getting convoluted until we finally understand the truth: one of the directors had planned the kidnapping, using a spy from Slough House who had resigned. The plan was to appear like the heroes by rescuing the boy, who happened to be the nephew of a big name in Pakistan.
Things go south, the infiltrated spy gets killed, and the kidnappers run away with the boy.
Taverner tries to put the blame on Slough House (and by extension on Lamb), which triggers an internal conflict of running against the clock.
A detail I liked is that toward the end, there's an arch back to the trigger of the story: River was framed by his partner, Spider, under instructions of Taverner. The only reason was that River had as assignment to shadow her for few weeks and took a photo while she was speaking with the spy that infiltrated the neo-nazi cell who kidnapped Hassan.
Everything wraps in a consistent story: River had evidence (even if he didn't know it) of a crime that hadn't happen yet. Since he wasn't fired, ended up in the place that put him in a unique position to disentangle the entire mess.
The kidnapped boy manages to escape by himself (another nice touch, no heroes). And Lamb uses what he learned about Taverner to keep her in his debt.
Overall, the second hand of the book was much quicker and a page turner. The first half was a bit slow and boring, harder to digest.
Backlinks
These are the other notes that link to this one.
Comment
