Slow Horses

 Slow Horses

Slough House

Jackson Lamb

River Cartwright - OB (David Cartwright)

Jed Moody

Roderick Ho

Catherine Standish, 48 - Charles Partner

Min Harper - Stupid Moment

Louisa Guy

Struan Loy

Kay White

Sidonie “Sid” Baker

Max’s

Robert Hobden, 56

Regent’s Park

James Webb (Spider)

Diana “Lady Di” Taverner, Second Desk

Ingrid Tearney

Sam “Bad Sam” Chapman - Dog

Nick Duffy, Head Do

River Cartwright – Wannabe super spy/espionage royalty/screwup

Roddy “Clint” Ho – Computer genius and social incompetent

Min Harper and Louisa Guy – Two spy screw ups who form an unlikely connection

Catherine Standish – Formerly the right hand of the head of the service (Charlie Partner), formerly a drunk, currently sober and the administrative force keeping Lamb’s Slough House running

Sidonie “Sid” Baker – a young, attractive agent whose reasons for being sent among the Slow Horses is murky

Jed Moody – A former “Dog”, Herron’s name for MI5’s internal affairs/cleanup squad, now put out to pasture with the Slow Horses.

Jackson Lamb – Cold Warrior whose closest brush with being PC was turning on his computer.

Diana “Lady Di” Taverner – MI5 upper management. I was going to call her a schemer, but since everyone in these books seems to be scheming in some way, that doesn’t seem entirely fair. Better might be that she raises scheming to an art form.

James “Spider” Webb – The jealous peer of River and aspiring bigwig, currently littlewig.

Despite my rather glib one sentence summations of each character, Herron gives them layers and textures that make them into real people. You may not like them, but you understand and relate to their motivations and foibles. He’s done something rare in these novels and even rarer in the espionage genre – create a cast of characters that could all be worthy of their own spinoff book.

*A few of his memorable character sketches.

Min Harper – Stupid Moment

Min Harper spent a chunk of the evening on the phone to his boys: nine and eleven. A year ago, this would have left him knowing more than he needed to about computer games and TV shows, but it seemed both had crossed a line at the same time, and now it was like trying to have a conversation with a pair of refrigerators.

Roderick “Roddy” Ho –

Years ago—and he wouldn’t thank you for reminding him—Roderick Ho had worked out what his Service nickname would be. More than that, he’d settled on his possible responses first time it was used. Yeah, make my day, he’d say. Or Feeling lucky, punk? That’s what you said when people called you Clint. Roderick Ho = Westward Ho = Eastward Ho = Clint. But nobody had ever called him Clint. Perhaps political correctness wouldn’t allow them to make the oriental elision from Westward to Eastwood. Or perhaps he was giving them too much credit. Perhaps they’d never heard of Westward Ho!

Louisa Guy –

Louisa Guy went home to her rented studio flat: examined its four walls—what she could see of them behind stuff in the way: piles of CDs, books, damp laundry on collapsible racks—and almost went straight out again, but couldn’t face the choices that would entail.

Jackson Lamb –

Lamb didn’t look any different, was still a soft fat rude bastard, still dressed like he’d been thrown through a charity shop window, but Jesus, River thought—Lamb was a joe.

River, talking about his interactions with his master spy grandfather –

‘But the first bedtime story he ever did read me was Kim.’ River could tell she recognized the title, so didn’t elaborate. ‘After that, well, Conrad, Greene. Somerset Maugham.’ ‘Ashenden.’ ‘You get the picture. For my twelfth birthday, he bought me le Carré’s collected works. I can still remember what he said about them. ‘They’re made up. But that doesn’t mean they’re not true.”