I was enjoying my U3A literature session where we had been asked to bring prose on the theme of doors. I was as usual enjoying the variety and the obscure tangents that lead people to new discoveries. Interestingly, everyone had avoided going through the wardrobe door to Narnia but we did go down the rabbit hole with Alice where there are a selection of doors of course.
However, the next person started to read:
‘Let us be clear about this much at least: Slough House is not in Slough; nor is it a house. Its front door lurks in a dusty recess between commercial premises in the Borough of Finsbury; a stone’s throw from Barbican Underground Station.’
I suspect that a smile crossed my face; Slow Horses by Mick Herron.
My knowledge of these stories only came from television where Gary Oldman, looking dirty, disreputable and highly undesirable, played Jackson Lamb, a strange sort of anti- hero in these stories of M15 characters. Don’t let James Bond type stories come to mind. These are the antithesis as there is a total lack of glamour and frequently a total lack of success. Mick Herron’s players are MI5 agents who have fallen foul of the system in some way, made egregious mistakes or possibly upset someone higher up the ladder than themselves. They are sent, tail between their legs, to Slough House where Jackson Lamb rules. It is his domain, albeit shabby and scattered with the remains of takeaway meals and cans of coke. Their jobs are menial and they smoulder at the unfairness of it all and have a desperation to get back to Regents Park where the real action is planned and operations are plotted.
I was well aware that the TV series emanated from books but I hadn’t actually read any. Over coffee with the Mick Herron aficionado ( he has the entire collection of these books!) we talked about ‘Slow Horses’ and then he thrust said book into my hands to borrow. I will return it early December at the next U3A session.
It was a fairly quick and easy read. I did need to keep turning the pages. It was exciting and extremely well written and I will read some more. There is a new series of Slow Horses on Apple TV which I’m sure I will also enjoy.
The only disadvantage to reading a borrowed paperback is that I cannot read it in the bath. It would get wavy and that would be impolite.