Slow Horses
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

Slough House is an administrative oubliette for British intelligence. Spooks who have screwed up in a big way are assigned there, and no one has ever been returned to real service. In spook speak, the denizens of Slough House are Slow Horses, objects of scorn, fridge magnets. River Cartwright, the ostensible protagonist of this crackling good spy thriller-farce, wants to be the first Slow Horse to force his own resurrection to MI5, and he sees his chance when an apparently inept right-wing group kidnaps a Pakistani youth and threatens to behead him on a live webcast. Saying more about the plot might spoil the fun. Herron's sixth novel is filled with acidic wit and engaging misdirection, and readers will need to adjust to his narrative style; but the rewards are great. Slow Horses is a fine thriller with enough suspense, double-dealing, and mayhem for thriller devotees; but it's also a wonderfully funny, farcical, deeply cynical skewering of politics, bureaucrats, turf wars, and the Great Game.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2010 Booklist

Banished to London's Slough House-the junkyard for disgraced MI5 agents-for botching a high-profile training exercise, River Cartwright spends his days sifting through garbage and transcribing phone conversations in Herron's riveting spy thriller. His boss, Jackson Lamb, who governs Slough House as if it's his own kingdom, makes sure the "slow horses" know they'll never get back to high-profile work at Regent's Park. River, bored with his tedious assignments, discovers that one of his fellow agents has been lifting information from Robert Hobden, a well-known journalist. When a Muslim teenager is kidnapped and a video promising to decapitate him appears online, River wonders if it's connected to Hobden, who has ties to the extremist British Patriotic Party. Herron (Smoke & Whispers) avoids the easy cliche of misfits banding together to right a wrong, instead painting his slow horses as complex characters who are just as fallible as their "faster" counterparts. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Slough House is an "administrative oubliette" for British intelligence. Spooks who have screwed up in a big way are assigned there, and no one has ever been returned to real service. In spook speak, the denizens of Slough House are Slow Horses, objects of scorn, "fridge magnets." River Cartwright, the ostensible protagonist of this crackling good spy thriller-farce, wants to be the first Slow Horse to force his own resurrection to MI5, and he sees his chance when an apparently inept right-wing group kidnaps a Pakistani youth and threatens to behead him on a live webcast. Saying more about the plot might spoil the fun. Herron's sixth novel is filled with acidic wit and engaging misdirection, and readers will need to adjust to his narrative style; but the rewards are great. Slow Horses is a fine thriller with enough suspense, double-dealing, and mayhem for thriller devotees; but it's also a wonderfully funny, farcical, deeply cynical skewering of politics, bureaucrats, turf wars, and the Great Game. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

Banished to London's Slough House—the junkyard for disgraced MI5 agents—for botching a high-profile training exercise, River Cartwright spends his days sifting through garbage and transcribing phone conversations in Herron's riveting spy thriller. His boss, Jackson Lamb, who governs Slough House as if it's his own kingdom, makes sure the "slow horses" know they'll never get back to high-profile work at Regent's Park. River, bored with his tedious assignments, discovers that one of his fellow agents has been lifting information from Robert Hobden, a well-known journalist. When a Muslim teenager is kidnapped and a video promising to decapitate him appears online, River wonders if it's connected to Hobden, who has ties to the extremist British Patriotic Party. Herron (Smoke & Whispers) avoids the easy clich of misfits banding together to right a wrong, instead painting his slow horses as complex characters who are just as fallible as their "faster" counterparts. (June)