Lamb’s shabby exterior belies a keen analytical mind. Like a clandestine vagabond, he prowls the corridors of his little fiefdom causing all manner of misery and offence. Slough House might be a dead-end but there still has to be a boss.

Lamb is a wonderful literary creation, the very best of cantankerous sods. The “slow horses” are expendable, someone needs to be on hand to take the blame should it be deemed necessary. When a kidnap plot goes sideways and a scapegoat is required, Jackson Lamb and his errant band of inept agents are drawn into the swiftly escalating situation. Should you decide to leave, causing the minimum of fuss along the way, that would be ideal. Rather than being fired, you are sent to career Purgatory. A demotion to Slough House means you’re an embarrassment to the bosses in the intelligence community. So much so that when I learned it was based on a novel of the same name by Mick Herron, I decided I had to check it out. To Hell with new releases for a change, I’ve decided to jot down some words about a book I read purely for the pleasure of reading it. I’d heard nothing but good things about a new television drama series called Slow Horses so I thought I would give it a go. I’ve gone totally off-piste this week and thrown my review schedule completely out the windows. And whatever the instructions of their masters at the Intelligence Service headquarters, the slow horses aren’t going to just sit quiet and watch. When a boy is kidnapped and held hostage, his beheading is scheduled for live broadcast on the net. Not one of them joined the Intelligence Service to be a slow horse and the one thing they have in common is they want to be back in the action. In this drab and mildewed office these highly trained spies don’t run ops, they push paper. Known as the ‘slow horses’ these misfits have committed crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal while on duty. Slough House is the outpost where disgraced spies are banished to see out the rest of their derailed careers.

Slow Horses by Mick Herron