London’s Slough House is where disgraced MI5 operatives are reassigned to spend the rest of their spy careers pushing paper. But when one of these “slow horses” is kidnapped by a former soldier bent on revenge, the agents must breach the defenses of Regent’s Park to steal valuable intel in exchange for their comrade’s safety. The kidnapping is only the tip of the iceberg, however, as the agents uncover a larger web of intrigue that involves not only a group of private mercenaries but also the highest authorities in the Security Service. After years spent as the lowest on the totem pole, the slow horses suddenly find themselves caught in the midst of a conspiracy that threatens not only the future of Slough House, but of MI5 itself.
Review:
Dear Mick Herron,
I finished this entry in your series yesterday and I still cannot figure out how to review it. I enjoyed the book a lot, however I also spent a lot of my reading time yelling at a certain character and it is really hard to explain why without talking about spoilers. The blurb conceals the punch of the story, but I have to at least try and this is at least mentioned in the blurb.
So here it goes, when as blurb says one member of the “slow horses” team is kidnapped, another member of the team is contacted by the kidnappers and asked to steal something or “the kidnapped person’s” safety is not a guarantee at all.
Can someone please please explain to me why the person whom kidnappers contact does not call Jackson Lamb, who is this person’s boss and the kidnapped person’s boss? I mean, what in the name was that? I understand that this person had the kidnapped person’s safety in mind of course I do, but if you need to have your “grand adventure,” at least call your boss first then rush to do it if you so desire. Oh my god.
Again, all members of this team became Slow Horses because they either made a mistake or their superiors decided that they did, so I get that, but this was to me such a disappointing lack of trust that I could not shake it off for most of the book.
I still like this character a lot mind you, such is the talent of the writer, but my opinion of this character’s intellectual abilities went down a lot.
As I said above, I get that it was done because of the desire to help the kidnapped member, which was great and I want to go into what I actually appreciated a lot. I thought that the Slow Horses Team actually started to trust each other and care for each other more than before. Oh, they do not do fluffy bunnies stuff, but I thought that it showed in their actions in the field a lot. I was happy that the characters continue to develop and showed us some new layers, good or bad. And Jackson may not have perfect trust of his team yet, but if I had any doubts that he cares for his team and their safety, this book erased them.
I sort of complained about previous books being a little too slow in the beginning. I actually did not feel this about this book at all, maybe because I was worried about several characters at the same time and it started too early in the story.
Grade: B/B+
AmazonBNKoboBook DepositoryGoogle
Related
Sirius
Sirius started reading books when she was four and reading and discussing books is still her favorite hobby. One of her very favorite gay romances is Tamara Allen’s Whistling in the Dark. In fact, she loves every book written by Tamara Allen. Amongst her other favorite romance writers are Ginn Hale, Nicole Kimberling, Josephine Myles, Taylor V. Donovan and many others. Sirius’ other favorite genres are scifi, mystery and Russian classics. Sirius also loves travelling, watching movies and long slow walks.
