Slow Horses

 

It's rare for me to read the book after watching the series, but in this case, I came across Slow Horses first on Apple TV and thought it was fantastic -- a dark, British spy thriller with a bunch of misfits headed by Gary Oldman, with Kristen Scott Thomas as the kind-of villain? Wow. But it's meant that I came to Mick Herron's book with a certain amount of foreknowledge and expectation.

Firstly, I have to say that the show is perfectly cast. I couldn't imagine anyone but Oldman as dishevelled, filthy Jackson Lamb, the apparently washed-up operative who still has tricks up his sleeve. The rest of the team are just as good. And the atmosphere of the books is beautifully captured -- grimy London streets, running around in the dark, the run down offices of Slough House itself, where the various 'slow horses' have been assigned to see out their days with tedious tasks, or, preferably, resign in sheer disgust. The characters are rich, the plot was satisfyingly twisty (in fact I think the script writers ratcheted up the tension a notch or two), there is enough gore to raise the stakes without being so cruel as to stop me reading (or watching), all leavened with a pinch of very British humour. Though I must say that the abduction of a nineteen year old aspiring stand-up comedian was a little close to the bone...!

There are about eight books in the series and I hope Apple adapts every single one of them and makes Mich Herron a rich man.