Slough Completion Draft
Over the past year or so, I haven’t been posting as much about books I’ve completed. Just fell out of the habit. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading though.
The end of 2024 brought notice of quite a bit of spy reading. That’s proceeded apace, and I can proudly announce I completed reading all of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses / Slough House works on offer. Even got all of the novellas.
| Slow Horses | 2010 | novel |
| Dead Lions | 2013 | novel |
| The List | 2015 | novella |
| Real Tigers | 2016 | novel |
| Spook Street | 2017 | novel |
| London Rules | 2018 | novel |
| The Drop | 2018 | novella |
| Joe Country | 2019 | novel |
| The Catch | 2020 | novella |
| The Last Dead Letter | 2020 | novella |
| Slough House | 2021 | novel |
| Bad Actors | 2022 | novel |
| Standing by the Wall | 2022 | novella |
| Standing by the Wall | 2022 | collection |
| Clown Town | 2025 | novel |
Insert suitably arch and coarse commentary on this achievement worthy of Jackson Lamb.
Still processing the happenings of “Clown Town” which was extremely dark and cynical, even for a Slough House tale. Herron definitely has no reluctance in knocking off characters. Not to mention taking Lamb to a new level of anti-hero.
As Lamb was busy burning houses down (boy ever) Herron didn’t quite wind things up, although there’s not much of Slough House left by the end. A little scouring of the Interwebs indicates there may be more Slough House to come, but the publisher has not announced anything to date.
However, according to Wikipedia:
Three of Herron’s other novels, Reconstruction (2008), Nobody Walks (2015) and The Secret Hours (2023), take place within the same world and feature characters from the series, but are not considered part of the main Slough House series.
Looks like I’ve got a bit more work to do.
Meanwhile, a lurking subtext that fascinates me is the relationship between Jackson Lamb and Molly Doran. “Standing by The Wall” would seem to surface quite a bit, but not the complete story.
How did Diana Taverner get up to Second Desk? Evidence from the novels would indicate that despite her constant proclamations about being excellent at her job, that might not actually be the case. Keeping with the overriding themes, self-delusion, organizational politics, and plain old skulduggery could be key factors.
River’s dad has allegedly been eliminated. Allegedly. And his mother is still a thread that could be rewoven.
Who did Roddy fall afoul of to be banished to Slough House?
Will Standish ever fall?
And of course the pinnacle would be clarifying all of Lamb’s back story and knocking him off. Or having him ride off into the sunset.
But most likely getting knocked off, either by an enemy or lung disease.