"Bad Sam once said he wasn’t frightened of anyone except overweight guys with bad breath and ill-fitting shirts. You know why? Because once in a nun’s nightmare, one of them would turn out to be Jackson Lamb. And by the time you’d realised that, you’d lost your lunch, your boots and most of your teeth.”
— Nick Duffy, Slow Horses
A series of spy thrillers by Mick Herron. The books centre around Slough House, a dumping ground for the incompetent, unfortunate and inconvenient employees that the UK's spy agency MI5 can't simply sack, prosecute or otherwise remove. Given the name of the building, they’re mockingly called "Slow Horses".
And the staff of Slough House all work for Jackson Lamb, a legendary and monstrous veteran of the cold war. Lamb himself is deliberately horrible to his team, but he's anything but incompetent. And, regardless of whether or not he actually likes them, he won't tolerate anyone putting his team at risk.
As well as the main series, there are a few shorter novels and short stories in the same setting - which aren’t always centred around Slough House, but sometimes explain why certain Slow Horses were reassigned there.
Now adapted into a Slow Horses TV show, starring Gary Oldman.
Books in the series
This list includes stories that are part of the same Shared Universe, but not part of the core Slough House saga. Stories are listed in chronological order, not necessarily publication order.- Reconstruction: Not part of the main Slough House saga, but introduces the Dogs and 'Bad Sam' Chapman.
- Slow Horses
- Dead Lions
- The List: Not part of the main Slough House saga. First of the John Bachelor novellas.
- Real Tigers
- Nobody Walks: Not part of the main Slough House saga. Centres on a retired Dog, Tom Bettany, and Dame Ingrid Tierney, the service's First Desk.
- Spook Street
- London Rules
- The Marylebone Drop: Not part of the main Slough House saga. Second of the John Bachelor novellas.
- Joe Country
- The Catch: Not part of the main Slough House saga. Third of the John Bachelor novellas.
- Slough House
- The Last Dead Letter: A short story about Molly Doran, Jackson Lamb and events in Lamb's past.
- Bad Actors
- Standing By The Wall: A short story about Slough House.
- The Secret Hours: Not part of the main Slough House saga. A novel about the Monochrome inquiry into secret service misconduct, and the things it unearths.
The series as a whole provides examples of:
- Bad Boss:
- Jackson Lamb himself. A conversation with Ingrid Tearney in Real Tigers makes it clear that this is a directive from MI5 leadership, who want the Slow Horses to quit. Tearney is concerned that Lamb may be going too far out of malicious compliance and becoming a hate figure who encourages them to dig their heels in and stay. Lamb deflects that question, which she noticed.
- The leadership of MI5 often falls into this category, especially ‘Lady Di’ Taverner and Ingrid Tearney.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Happens more than once in the Bachelor novellas. The main sequence novels tend to be slightly more positive.
- Deadpan Snarker: Jackson Lamb himself.
- Fat Slob: Jackson Lamb. He makes a point of being crass and dishevelled, at least partly because he enjoys trolling those who have to deal with him.
- Gasshole: Jackson Lamb. Capable of farting on demand, which is usually whenever he wants to dismiss someone else's contribution to a conversation.
- Mirroring Factions: For all the contempt that the Slow Horses get from the rest of the service, it is often apparent that the supposed 'elite' of Regent's Park are in fact pretty incompetent and prone to disastrous fuck-ups themselves; what they in fact tend to excel at is finding others to take the fall for their mistakes.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Peter Judd is definitely not Boris Johnson. Something which is lampshaded in Slough House, when Judd's left politics but Boris Johnson is apparently Prime Minister. Judd himself makes a few comparisons between the two.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The ever-changing list of spies reassigned to Slough House.
- Spy Fiction: Decidedly of the "Stale Beer" variety. The cheap, nasty kind, with a couple of fag-ends floating on the top.
- Stealth Sequel: The 2023 novel The Secret Hours was promoted as a standalone book about the civil servants assigned to the Monochrome inquiry into secret service misconduct, and how the OTIS files shake up an otherwise thwarted investigation. However, the Slough House novella Standing By The Wall features a scene with Molly Doran thinking about Monochrome, and centers around a very old photo of Jackson, Molly and Otis.
- Underestimating Badassery: The page quote on Jackson Lamb, paints him as someone even 'The Dogs' shouldn't second guess and he proves it.
- We Have Reserves: This sometimes seems to be the MI5 leadership’s view of the Slow Horses. Jackson Lamb, for all his faults, does not agree.
