The Drop
Old spooks carry the memory of tradecraft in their bones, and when Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope being passed from one pair of hands to another in a Marylebone café, he knows he's witnessed more than an innocent encounter. But in relaying his suspicions to John Bachelor, who babysits retired spies like Solly, he sets in train events which will alter lives. Bachelor himself, a hair's breadth away from sleeping in his car, is clawing his way back to stability; Hannah Weiss, the double agent whose recruitment was his only success, is starting to enjoy the secrets and lies her role demands; and Lech Wicinski, an Intelligence Service analyst, finds that a simple favour for an old acquaintance might derail his career. Meanwhile, Lady Di Taverner is trying to keep the Service on an even keel, and if that means throwing the odd crew member overboard, well: collateral damage is her speciality.
A drop, in spook parlance, is the passing on of secret information.
It's also what happens just before you hit the ground.
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Mick Herron
Mick Herron is the #1 bestselling and award-winning novelist and short story writer, best known for his Slough House thrillers. The series has been adapted into an Apple TV series, Slow Horses, starring Oscar-winning actor Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.
Raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, Herron studied English Literature at Oxford, where he continues to live. After some years writing poetry, he turned to fiction, and – despite a daily commute into London, where he worked as a sub editor – found time to write about 350 words a day. His first novel, Down Cemetery Road, was published in 2003. This was the start of Herron’s Zoë Boehm series, set in Oxford and featuring detective Zoë Boehm and civilian Sarah Tucker. The other books in the series are The Last Voice You Hear, Why We Die, and Smoke and Whispers, set in his native Newcastle. During the same period he wrote a number of short stories, many of which appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.
Slough House
In a genre often defined by flawless operatives and polished espionage, Slough House takes a delightfully different path. These are not the spies entrusted with the nation's greatest secrets. They are the castoffs, the mistakes, the agents who failed once and were quietly pushed into a forgotten corner of British intelligence. Yet from that unlikely premise emerges one of the sharpest and most compelling spy thriller series of the modern era.
Slough House consists of eight primary books, and includes four additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
