Herron’s Slough House

When le Carré died in 2020, he was believed to have been the greatest spy novelist of all time. Writing in the heydays of the Cold War, realism was his forte and all his works were marked by a sense of pathos and tragedy. Over the past few years, the British writer Mick Herron has slowly caught the attention of the crime-fiction world with his Slough House series based on British Intelligence. The New Yorker calls him the ‘best spy novelist of his generation’ and sees him as a worthy successor to the galaxy of British spy writers – Maugham, Greene, Fleming, and of course le Carré.

The Slough House is a ‘punishment posting’ for MI5 spies who goofed up on the job. So an odd assortment of misfits languish here and presiding over them is a grand old spook – Jackson Lamb, an obnoxious, toxic, sexist, unhygienic, and flatulent boss who also happens to be a great spook and a legend of the Service. In addition to Michael Scott, I now have one more archetype of a boss to think about when I switch off during a meeting. I’m betting that the address of Slough House – Aldersgate Street, next to a Chinese takeout and near the Barbican tube station may someday soon become a literary landmark. (Maybe not in the league of 221B Bakers Street or Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross)

I just finished Book Five of the 13-book series and I must say I enjoyed every bit of the experience. The series has been adapted to the small-screen as Slow Horses. The first three seasons have been faithful to the books. Gary Oldman as Lamb is a delight and the main draw. I’d recommend you to read the books too instead of just watching the series.

One offshoot from Season 1 was my discovery of the song 500 miles by The Proclaimers. It’s become an ear-worm specially the line:

But I would walk 500 miles

And I would walk 500 more

Just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles

To fall down at your door