Slough House Books In Order

Publication Order of Slough House Books

The “Slough House” series of novels is a set of novels by Mick Herron, an award-winning and bestselling author of mystery and thriller fiction who loves to call himself an accidental spy novelist.

The author was born and raised in Newcastle and ever since he was a teenager, he used to love writing, even though he initially penned poetry before he gravitated toward literary fiction.

After graduating with a degree in English Literature, he would work as a sub-editor for several years. Since he lived in Oxford at the time, he used to commute to London five days a week, even though he still found time to write at least 350 words every day.

He got his start when he published “Down Cemetery Road,” his debut novel that would spawn the highly popular “Oxford” series of novels.

His many novels are immersed in the world of spies which he sees as a means to an end. While his day job and long commute meant he had very little time to pen his novels, it was that commute that birthed the spy location for his most popular work.

But even though he would garner much notoriety with “Slough House,” he had previously achieved success publishing short fiction with “Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.”

Herron’s journey towards becoming an acclaimed novelist writing thriller and mystery fiction began with a simple idea.

Thinking about a unique angle to spy novel writing, he came up with the concept of the “Slough Hous”e novels. He started thinking about how would it be if the bigwigs at MI5 decided not to fire any of the screwed-up agents.

They would instead place them somewhere where they would be out of the way of the real spies and could not bother them as they did their work.

Mick Herron combined his idea with that of an old and odd-looking building he used to walk past while he was on his daily commute. The building had a dingy black door slapped between a dodgy convenience store and a bizarre-looking restaurant.

The black door was the only way up the building to the floors on the floors above. It was a depressing building, particularly for someone on a hectic and long commute to work.

However, Mick Herron saw that it would make for a good setting for his fired MI5 agents. “Slow Horses” his debut novel would finally be published by Soho Press in 2010.

Mick now has more than twenty works to his name and has won all manner of prestigious awards.

The central concept of the “Slough House” series of novels by Mick Herron is the notion that large spy organizations need places to hide their hopeless employees.

For the “Slough House” series and MI5, this place happens to be a building near the Barbican Centre in London named “Slough House.”

The hopeless employees are not allowed at the headquarters of MI5, even though much of the organization was moved from Regent’s Park.

Working from the Slough House’s dilapidated offices, the employees spend their days working on useless files and tasks intended to make them get fed up and finally hand in their resignations.
Each novel in the series comes with an underdog story as a group of under-resourced and under-qualified individuals often work hard and beat the efforts of their colleagues at Regent Park to save the day.

Part of the appeal of these novels has to be the fact that they incorporate an underdog story. Moreover, these novels are all about friendships tested in death and life situations and forged from the common bonds of disappointment.

“Slow Horses” is the first novel of the Slough House series of novels. The washed-out spies of MI5 are usually banished to the Slough House.

Referred to as slow horses, most of them have disgraced themselves which is what resulted in their banishment.
Some have messed up while on an op and could no longer be trusted while some had gotten in the way of an ambitious colleague who set them up. For some, they just got hooked on alcohol which is common in their line of work.

However, all of them just want to be back in the main action and would do anything to get back in the good books of their superiors at Regent Park.

One such slow horse is River Cartwright who could not have been more frustrated at his failure and having to transcribe tedious cell phone conversations.

He sees an opportunity to redeem his image when some young man is taken captive and his kidnappers say they are going to stream a live broadcast as they behead him.

However, the victim may not be who appears to be. There may also be a strange connection between the kidnappers and a disgraced journalist.

The second novel of the “Slough House” series of novels by Mick Herron is “Dead Lions.”

At the opening of the novel, The slow horses at Slough House in London are prepared to collaborate with each other in an effort to get back into the good books of their superiors at MI5.

They finally get a chance at redemption when an old washed-out cold war spy named Dickie Bow is found dead in a London bus. The hard-to-like and difficult Jackson Lamb is sure that the man was murdered.

Another thread in the novel has to do with a man named Spider Webb. He has just taken two of Lamb’s spies to meet the demands and protect a Russian oligarch from whom Webb is expecting to profit politically and personally.
It makes for a legendary and mythic tale of the Russian Mob and sleeper cells that infiltrate the highest level of government.

Digging into the circumstances of their comrade’s murder, they uncover a dark tangle of Cold War secrets that seem to point to Alexander Popov. The latter is either the most dangerous man on the planet or a Soviet bogeyman.
Combining explosions, bombs and a deadly search for vengeance it makes for a thrilling mystery work.

“Real Tigers” is the third novel of the “Slough House” series of novels by Mick Herron. The disgraced MI5 operatives at the Slough House have spent years pushing paper and are desperate to go back to Regent Park to reinvigorate their careers.

But then they are called into action when one of them is taken by a former soldier hell-bent on vengeance. To rescue their colleague they will need to break into Regent Park with its formidable defenses to steal some valuable intel.

However, it turns out that the kidnapping is just but a small part of a much bigger complexity.

As they work on their plan to rescue their colleague, they find a huge web of intrigue that includes the highest authorities working in the Security Services and a group of private mercenaries.

After being some of the lowest-ranking people in intelligence, the slow horses now find they are in the middle of a conspiracy that threatens the future not only of their organization but also that of the MI5.