Slow Horses: The bestselling thrillers that inspired the hit Apple TV+ show Slow Horses (Slough House Thriller 1)
Mick Herron
Jul 2025 · Baskerville · Narrated by Sean Barrett
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5 reviews
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9 hr 44 min
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*Now an award-winning Apple TV+ series starring Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Jack Lowden*
'The most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War' The Times
'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 Carré - 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 enjoyable British spy novel in years' Mail on Sunday
'The new spy master' Evening Standard
'The most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War' The Times
'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 Carré - 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 enjoyable British spy novel in years' Mail on Sunday
'The new spy master' Evening Standard
*Now an award-winning Apple TV+ series starring Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Jack Lowden*
'The most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War' The Times
'To have been lucky enough to play Smiley in one's career; and now go and play Jackson Lamb in Mick Herron's novels - th...
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Ratings and reviews
5 reviews
Adam Bates
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January 22, 2026
brilliantly narrated, had me hooked for the entire book and I already watched the TV show.
About the author
Mick Herron is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Slough House thrillers, which have been published in over thirty languages and are the basis of the award-winning TV series Slow Horses, starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb. Among his other novels are the Zoë Boehm series, also now adapted for TV starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson, and the standalone novels The Secret Hours and Nobody Walks. Mick's awards include the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and the CWA Gold, Steel and Diamond Daggers. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and now lives in Oxford.
Mick Herron is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Slough House thrillers, which have been published in over thirty languages and are the basis of the award-winning TV series Slow Horses, starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb. Among his other novels are the Zoë Boehm series, also now ada...
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