Book Review: “Slow Horses” by Mick Herron

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

I’ve just read the latest installments of this series, Slow Horses (2010) is the first one.  Reading them out of order makes it a little weird, of course.  Slow Horses introduces the term itself (and also explains “London Rules” which I figured out myself), and introduces many of the characters.  We learn the origin stories of some of the key people, which does explain some questions left unanswered from just the later books. We also know some things that are going to happen in the future, which is mostly sad.  I mean, Slow Horses do not meet good ends, mostly.

Fortunately, this time warp wasn’t too bad.  The story is so crazy, and the people so broken, nothing makes sense anyway.  The government and security services seem to spend more effort fighting among themselves as fighting enemies.

This 2020 resissue I have includes an author’s note, remarking on it’s unenthusiastic reception at the first publication. 

“My original UK publisher took exception to the book; he thought its plot strand concerning the resurgence of the far right ridiculously unlikely, and references to, for instance, Britain leaving the European Union revealed how out of touch I was with contemporary politics.”

[1], p. xii

I have to say, this story is astonishingly prescient about UK politics!

Overall, this is just as good as the later books, and I look forward to filling in the gaps of what I haven’t read yet.

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1. Mick Herron, Slow Horses, New York, Soho Crime, 2010.

Sunday Book Reviews