Culture

What’s So Great About ‘Slow Horses’? This Scene Says It All.

Published

4 months ago

October 17, 2025

What’s So Great About ‘Slow Horses’? This Scene Says It All.

A couple dozen pages into “Clown Town,” Mick Herron’s latest novel, two veteran spies share a bench in London. They’re Jackson Lamb and Diana Taverner, notorious fictional fixtures of MI5, the British intelligence service. Fans of “Slow Horses,” the Apple TV series adapted from Herron’s earlier Slough House books, will recognize the pair as the characters played with brisk professionalism and callused gravitas by Kristin Scott Thomas and Gary Oldman.

Those incomparable actors are a big part of the show’s appeal, but the Britain they inhabit — weary, cynical, clinging to the tattered scraps of ancient imperial glory — is built out of Herron’s witty, corkscrew sentences.

And this bench, like others where Lamb and Taverner meet with some regularity on both screen and page, is hardly an incidental bit of urban furniture. It holds not only their aging bureaucratic bums, but also a heavy load of literary and sociological significance.

An ambient sarcasm hangs in the foul air around his characters. Nearly every word is freighted with a mockery that is indistinguishable from judgment. Herron’s prose bristles with the kind of active, restless grudge against the world that is the sure sign of a moralist.

While spies, bureaucrats and especially politicians come in for comic scolding, the real target of his satire is an administrative regime that will be familiar to many readers and viewers who have never cracked a code or aimed a gun. In interviews, Herron has often noted that unlike John le Carré, to whom he is often compared, he has had no first-hand experience of espionage. But he has spent enough time toiling in offices to understand the absurdity — the banality, the cruelty, the cringeiness — of modern organizational life.

“Slow Horses” is a workplace comedy, and Diana and Jackson — nightmare colleagues and bosses from hell — are its flawed, indispensable heroes. Their nastiness to each other and everyone else is a reflection of their circumstances, but also a form of protest against the ethical rottenness of the system they serve.

The gimlet-eyed Diana, managing up from a precarious perch high in the organization, must contend with the cretinous crème de la crème of the British establishment. The epically flatulent Jackson, a career reprobate exiled to a marginal post far from the center of power, manages down, wrangling MI5’s designated misfits, the Slow Horses who give the series its name. Those poor spies need to be protected from external savagery, internal treachery and their own dubious instincts.

Jackson and Diana seem to share a cynical, self-serving outlook, but what really unites them is that they care enough about the job to do it right. More than that: They may be the last people in London who believe in decency, honor and fair play, embodiments of the humanist sentiment that lurks just below the busy, satirical surface of Herron’s novels. Not that they would ever admit as much — especially not to each other, planted on a public bench, where anyone could be spying on them.

Related Topics:Clown Town (Book)Featured Herron Mick (Author)vis-design

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Culture

Try This Quiz on Thrilling Books That Became Popular Movies

Published

4 days ago

February 23, 2026

Press Room

Try This Quiz on Thrilling Books That Became Popular Movies

Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights thrillers first published as novels (or graphic novels) that were adapted into popular films. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their screen versions.

Culture

Test Your Knowledge of the Authors and Events That Helped Shape the United States

Published

2 weeks ago

February 16, 2026

Press Room

Test Your Knowledge of the Authors and Events That Helped Shape the United States

Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. In honor of Gen. George Washington’s birthday on Feb. 22, this week’s super-size challenge is focused on the literature and history related to the American Revolution. In the 10 multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to exhibits, books and other materials related to this intense chapter in the country’s story, including an award-winning biography of the general and first U.S. president.

Culture

Video: How Much Do You Know About Romance Books?

Published

2 weeks ago

February 13, 2026

Press Room

Video: How Much Do You Know About Romance Books?

Let’s play romance roulette. No genre has dominated the books world in the last few years. Like romance, it accounts for the biggest percentage of book sales, their avid fan bases. Everyone has been talking about romance as a Book Review editor and as a fan of the genre myself, I put together a to z glossary of 101 terms that you should know if you want to understand the world of romance are cinnamon roll. You may think a cinnamon roll is a delicious breakfast treat, but in a romance novel, this refers to a typically male character who is so sweet and tender and precious that you just want to protect him and his beautiful heart from the world. Ooh, a rake. This is basically the Playboy of historical romance. He defies societal rules. He drinks, he gambles. He’s out on the town all night and is a very prolific lover with a bit of a reputation as a ladies’ man. FEI these are super strong, super sexy, super powerful, immortal, fairy like creatures. One of my favorite discoveries in terms that I learned was stern brunch daddy. A lot of daddy’s usually a male love interest who seems very intimidating and alpha, but then turns out to be a total softie who just wants to make his love interest brunch. I think there’s a misconception that because these books can follow these typical patterns, that they can be predictable and boring. But I think what makes a really great romance novel is the way that these writers use the tropes in interesting ways, or subvert them. If you can think of it, there’s probably a romance novel about it. Oops, there’s only one bed. This is one of my personal favorite tropes is a twist on forced proximity. Characters find themselves in very close quarters, where inevitably sparks start to fly. Why choose is the porkulus dose of the romance world. Sometimes the best way to resolve a love triangle is by turning it into a circle, where everyone is invited to play. Oops, we lost one spice level. There’s a really wide spectrum. You can range from really low heat or no spice, what might also be called kisses. Only then you start to get into what we call closed door or fade to Black. These books go right up to the moment of intimacy, and then you get into what we call open door, which is more explicit. And sometimes these can get very high heat or spicy and even start verging into kink. There’s one thing that almost every romance novel has in common. It’s that no matter what the characters get up to in the end, it ends with a happily ever after. I say almost every romance novel. Sometimes you’re just happy for now.