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A review by ptstewart
Slow Horses by Mick Herron
5.0
My biggest complaint is that despite marketing with horses, there are no horses. Absolutely insane choice. Ten points off.
However, excluding this abysmal reality, Slow Horses is genuinely great. There are what feels like a million characters, and while none exactly stand out, they never really melt together either. Rather, they all become spokes in a wheel: do we need all of them? Maybe not. Does it run better with all of them? Yeah, it does. Lamb is not the rough leader who becomes lovable due to discovering his undercurrent of loyalty and care for his people. He never really stops being a little gross and a little too tough. But we grow to appreciate him because he’s good. Where in some novels there are multiple storylines happening and we just can’t figure out how they’ll converge, Slow Horses follows a cast that splits apart, regroups, and goes right back out on separate paths of the same mission, so we know that everything is tangled.
The story itself, while not quite fast paced, is gripping and confusing in a way that makes the reader think rather than become frustrated. It takes a while to really fully understand what’s going on because the characters themselves don’t quite know (excluding Lamb, which makes him more likable), and once they figure it out, we’re still in a race to fix it all.
This was great; well done and highly enjoyable; I’m excited to come back for more.
However, excluding this abysmal reality, Slow Horses is genuinely great. There are what feels like a million characters, and while none exactly stand out, they never really melt together either. Rather, they all become spokes in a wheel: do we need all of them? Maybe not. Does it run better with all of them? Yeah, it does. Lamb is not the rough leader who becomes lovable due to discovering his undercurrent of loyalty and care for his people. He never really stops being a little gross and a little too tough. But we grow to appreciate him because he’s good. Where in some novels there are multiple storylines happening and we just can’t figure out how they’ll converge, Slow Horses follows a cast that splits apart, regroups, and goes right back out on separate paths of the same mission, so we know that everything is tangled.
The story itself, while not quite fast paced, is gripping and confusing in a way that makes the reader think rather than become frustrated. It takes a while to really fully understand what’s going on because the characters themselves don’t quite know (excluding Lamb, which makes him more likable), and once they figure it out, we’re still in a race to fix it all.
This was great; well done and highly enjoyable; I’m excited to come back for more.