Slow Horses: Slough House Thriller 1

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*Now a major TV series starring Gary Oldman* 'To have been lucky enough to play Smiley in one's career; and now go and play Jackson Lamb in Mick Herron's novels - the heir, in a way, to le Carre - is a terrific thing' Gary Oldman Spooks are supposed to be stealthy ... But those who make a noisy mess of their careers end up in Slough House. This is Jackson Lamb's kingdom: a dumping ground for spies who've screwed up. Once high fliers, they're now slow horses, condemned to a life of pushing paper as punishment for crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal. In drab and mildewed offices, these highly trained spies moan and squabble, stare at the walls, and dream of better days - not one of them joined the Intelligence Service to be a slow horse, and the one thing they have in common is their desire to be back in the action. So when a young man is kidnapped and held hostage, his beheading scheduled for live broadcast on the net, the slow horses aren't going to just sit quietly and watch. And unless they can prove they're not as useless as they're thought to be, a public execution is going to echo round the world. 'The most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War' The Times 'The most enjoyable British spy novel in years.' Mail on Sunday 'The new spy master' Evening Standard

Mick Herron is the author of the bestselling Slough House novels, which have won two CWA Daggers, been published in 20 languages, and are the basis of a major forthcoming TV series starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb. He is also the author of the Zoe Boehm series, and the standalone novels Reconstruction and This is What Happened. Mick was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and now lives in Oxford.

Praise for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb series: * . * The new spy master * Evening Standard * Jackson Lamb - the most fascinating and irresistible thriller series hero to emerge since Jack Reacher * Sunday Times * As a master of wit, satire, insight . . . Herron is difficult to overpraise * Daily Telegraph * The finest new crime series this Millennium * Mail on Sunday * The best modern British spy series * Daily Express * The John le Carre of our generation * Val McDermid * Mick Herron is the real deal * Irish Times * If you read one spy novel this year, read Real Tigers. Better still, read the whole series * Andrew Taylor, The Spectator * Surely among the finest British spy fiction of the past 20 years * Metro * With his poet's eye for detail, his comic timing and relish for violence, Herron fills a gap that has been yawning ever since Len Deighton retired * Daily Telegraph * The most enjoyable spy novel in years * Mail on Sunday * A funny, stylish, satirical, gripping story * Guardian * I was delighted to discover that this is merely the first in a captivating series * Herald * The first of his series about MI5 and a character called Jackson Lamb, one of the great monsters of modern fiction. He's a wonderfully cynical writer and there's a lot of dark humour in it. I'm not clever enough to write this sort of thing * Daily Express * I was delighted to discover Mick Herron's riotous Slow Horses series about the black sheep of MI5 * Big Issue * For something really gripping, head for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb series, in which a sidelined spook and his cohorts battle their way back to the centre of a life of espionage. Begin with Slow Horses and enjoy * Observer * Mick Herron's Slow Horses series has all the thrills of John Le Carre or Len Deighton with a black humour * Daily Mail (Scotland) * One of the most consistently enjoyable literary achievements of the past decade * The Times *