Lamb’s also fiercely loyal to his people and knows where some of MI-5’s bodies are buried, making him a thorn in the Park’s side. He’s an old-school spook and former ‘joe’ (field agent) with questionable hygiene, a drinking problem and the tendency to say the least acceptable thing possible in any given situation. Perhaps the most compelling is Jackson Lamb, the leader of Slough House. The dismay I felt by some of those losses says something about the author’s ability to create characters that are interesting and engaging, if not always likeable, including Slough House itself. The plots are intricate and full of twists, which doesn’t always work out for the horses: new characters are added regularly to replace those killed off. Unfortunately for the Park (but not readers), the horses somehow keep finding ways to get back in the game. Another, arguably my favorite, is such a social misfit no one at “the Park” headquarters can stand being around him.įor a variety of reasons the horses can’t be outright fired, so instead they’re banished to Slough House in hopes the excruciating tedium of spending their days at desks performing make-work of marginal value will encourage them to quit.

A third, during a training exercise, caused a very real-world catastrophe by shutting down a busy tube stop during rush hour. Another blew an operation resulting in a large influx of illegal weapons into London’s underworld. One accidently left a highly classified computer disk on a tube train seat. I enjoyed the first one so much that I read the rest of the existing books in the series back-to-back-to-back-to … you get it.Ī nondescript, tumbledown building in London, Slough House is the base of operations for the ‘slow horses’ - MI-5’s, shall we say, less successful agents. Thumbnail sketch: Darkly funny, intelligently plotted, deviously engrossing, characters you’ll love and hate. Amazon link: Slough House series (full novels only find novellas here)

Dead lions series