Slough House: Slough House Thriller 7
£4.70
*Discover The Secret Hours, the gripping new thriller from Mick Herron and an unmissable read for Slough House fans*
*Now a major TV series starring Gary Oldman*
*THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*
**THE TIMES THRILLER BOOK OF THE YEAR**
‘A gripping thriller’ Ian Rankin
Slough House – the crumbling office building to which failed spies, the ‘slow horses’, are banished – has been wiped from secret service records.
Reeling from recent losses in their ranks, the slow horses are worried they’ve been pushed further into the cold, and fatal accidents keep happening.
With a new populist movement taking a grip on London’s streets, the aftermath of a blunder by the Russian secret service that left a British citizen dead, and the old order ensuring that everything’s for sale to the highest bidder, the world’s an uncomfortable place for those deemed surplus to requirements. The wise move would be to find a safe place and wait for the troubles to pass.
But the slow horses aren’t famed for making wise decisions.
‘The most completely realised espionage universe since that peopled by George Smiley’ The Times
‘An absolute tour-de-force’ Sunday Express
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Additional information
| Publisher | Baskerville (4 Feb. 2021) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 4491 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 313 pages |
by PCM
Number seven in the series and there is no letting up in quality. Just when I thought the narrative was winding down to a slightly underwhelming conclusion, Mr Herron delivers a blow to the reader’s solar plexus with a devastating finale. Looking forward to the next instalment.
by jane austen
Just for once it would be nice if the characters were not made out to be incompetent losers, and that something good happened to them !
The Author claims to ‘ support the underdog’ and then later admits to inflicting his ‘brutality ‘‘ on to the characters.
So although I find the books hard to put down once I start reading one has an expectation that something brutal is going to happen to one or more of the Slow Horses and this book is no exception. ( spoiler alert) just when it seems that River has achieved his heart’s desire, along comes the Authors wrecking machine and dismantles the lot . Thank goodness there’s a God in heaven and it’s not Mick Herron!!
Whether River lives or dies as a result, is not made clear in book 8 , as with other loose ends from this book , which is annoying.
Jackson is a walking carrier of all sorts of bugs stoked up by the coughing, lack of washing and serial groin scratching! Not my favourite character but a brilliant adversary of ‘ The Establishment’ who’s characters with each book appear to become increasingly corrupt and self serving .
So yes would recommend, but the continuous downward spiral of the main characters, to me is becoming formulaic.
by Mandrek Larl
After a disappointing sixth instalment in the series with far too little Lamb and much more of his accompanying vegetables, Jackson Lamb is back in force in this the seventh instalment and this time he is front and centre with all his deft spy-craft, his acerbic wit and his flatulence as Mick Herron delivers a stunningly sardonic and sadly almost believable view of the state of contemporary (c2020) Britain where even the secret service is for sale.
As always Herron’s writing style is a joy to read with the format of these books remaining a constant being composed of an action packed prologue before an opening chapter of sumptuous observational detail followed by chapters of action, wry humour, and exchanges of cryptic little-does-he-know-that-I-know-that-he-knows dialogue, and a final concluding chapter of more gorgeous observational detail, however it is an unusual and idiosyncratic style that a Slough House virgin may find confusing and/or off-putting.
But then perhaps this is not a book that should be read as a standalone first Slough House book. With the usual cast of spooks, both current and has-beens, politicians and bureaucrats returning to find themselves once again dancing to Lamb’s fiddle knowledge of the previous books and the backstories of the dramatis personae would aid comprehension as there are frequent references to past events and past characters.
But disappointingly, and as at least one other reviewer notes, the ending is disappointingly inconclusive with a number of loose threads left dangling that I’m guessing are being used as a sadly cynical and unnecessary device to hook the reader into the next instalment and that’s why it’s only four stars when it could have been, should have been five.
by Bruce Crowther
Although I read (and write) crime fiction, I have never taken an interest in the espionage subgenre, but a few months ago a friend suggested that I read Mick Herron’s Slow Horses. Because my friend’s judgement on such matters is always sound I did so and was so impressed that I then did something else I’ve never done before. I ‘binged’ on the next five in Herron’s Slough House series: Dead Lions, Real Tigers, Spook Street, London Rules, Joe Country. Now, having just finished the seventh in the series, Slough House, I am forced to take a break until the eighth book appears in May next year. So what brought these changes to a decades-long habit? In a word: Quality. Herron’s main characters are a ragged bunch of failed spies condemned to spend their time carrying out mindless tasks down at the bottom of the Secret Service’s chain of command. Where’s the quality in that? It comes in the writing. Each of Herron’s characters is broken yet is perfectly drawn. Every element – attitude, appearance, emotions, thoughts, words (spoken and unspoken) – is exactly right. As for the immediate superior of these ‘slow horses’, he is Jackson Lamb who is more broken than any of them, but is a powerful and memorable individual. Characters outside Slough House are similarly well-drawn, notably Peter Judd, whose resemblance in looks, speech, morals (or lack of), etc, accurately reflect a real-life politician. He is not the only peripheral character who matches a real life person. There is also Number Seven, who is only mentioned in passing and then only by the code name, but you’ll have to read the books yourself to know who this is. These moments, when Herron’s vividly-told tales touch on the real world, add to the fear that perhaps everything is actually happening the way he describes. How would we know? The Secret Service is, after all, secret and it could be just as seedy and immoral as Herron portrays. If all this sounds as though it might be a gloomy trawl through the gutters, this is simply not so. Among the many qualities Herron brings to his writing is an ironic sense of humour through which he is able to lighten even the darkest moments. Next year’s eighth book Bad Actors (which I have on order) cannot come too soon. Not only that, I have heard that a television adaptation is forthcoming, with Gary Oldman in the role of Jackson Lamb. Not that you should wait for the television version. Read at least one of the Slough House series, but be warned, you’ll probably be hooked.
by JG
The first book in this series , slow horses, was great and well written . By 6 i think mick didnt know where to take the characters . River should have been allowed back in “ the Park “ and he could have developed the story beyond slough house . Both he and lech had proof of innocence . Lamb is made more gross book by book and theres a lot of emphasis/ repetition re his habits . Also the team wouldnt risk their lives for nothing surely – no motivation so why stay ?? Why not get them all back at the Park ??
by MR J A SAXBY
Great easy read but with good characterisation and a plausible plot line