Sometimes you knew you had a story, and were just waiting for its fin to show above the waves of everyday news.
Slow Horses
by Mick Herron
Genre: Spy Thriller
My thoughts
This is a spy thriller that centres on the spies that have been kicked out of the game. Not retired. Not fired. But left to rot at Slough House, a department of MI5 that doesn't do ops, or anything of much use to intelligence.
Mick Herron writes really well and does a lot of character work. Every character is fleshed out and by the end you really feel a connection to the group. Even the hateful characters are scarily realistic. PJ was particularly uncomfortable to read but masterfully done.
But while I can appreciate the writing, the characters and how the story plays out, especially when all the pieces fall into place at the end, I can't say I enjoyed the book overall.
Going into each character's past and their psychology slowed the pace massively. The plot also took some time to take off and the action was very choppy. Deliberately so, but I found I wasn't feeling any suspense because it was obvious we weren't being shown everything and what we were being shown was unreliable. To me it felt like a big red flag was being waved before each twist.
I also didn't enjoy the descriptions of women in this one. The young attractive one is of course a love interest, and the two older women have lengthy descriptions (repetitive ones) on how they're past their prime.
Verdict
So I can see the appeal and I've no doubt the TV show is a lot of fun, but it just wasn't for me.
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