#slow horses books

[generalpenguinangel]

Thoughts inspired by @saulbetter's recent posts.

This show is kind of sold or discussed as "spies! but they suck at being spies!" But the thing that all the slow horses actually have in common isn't that they're bad spies, it's that they're people without social capital. They actually range from competent to excellent at the technical aspects of their work (Ho, Catherine, Marcus, Shirley, Coe, and even River are all good at the hard skills of their jobs. We are told Louisa screwed up but in both show and books she is shown to be one of the most reliable performers on the team). But they don't have friends or patrons to protect them when things go sideways.

The reason they're the rejects is because they're loners who struggle to connect with other people for all their various reasons (childhood trauma, job-related PTSD, addiction, personality disorder, inherent temperament). So they're playing checkers when their internal opponents at Regent's Park are playing chess. To the extent that they even realize that the social/political game exists (Ho and Catherine mostly don’t), they're bad at it (Coe, Lech) and/or think they shouldn't have to play it (Marcus, Shirley). River impressively manages to be deficient in all three aspects: totally naive to the politics of advancement within the Park, bad with people, and so committed to his own view of himself as a Boy Scout that he thinks he shouldn't have to sully his hands with any of it.

This is why the show is such a brilliant office drama. This one is for all the folks who are good on paper but bomb in interviews, for all the people who are promoted based on their technical mastery and then shit the bed as managers because they're illiterate at reading people. This is why it's such a stroke of genius that River's ascendant career is cut off at the knees by tailing Taverner. He's so full of himself and such a try hard that he mistakenly thinks doing an unrequested extra credit assignment about his boss makes him clever instead of creepy, annoying, and red flagged as a potential troublemaker.

Unfortunately, because Mick Herron is unable to let the story or the characters grow, this excellent premise results in some deep weirdness later in the book series. (Weirder than the deadbeat dad child soldier sex cult plotline, you say? Idk, you be the judge.)

Book spoilers under the cut.

First, let’s talk about Lech Wicinski. (I know, no one wants to talk about Lech Wicinski, but he is the curly-haired insomniac introvert of my heart so I’m going to talk about him.) I love Lech but parts of his origin story are so stupid. He’s just a normal guy who is comfortable in his niche and relatively unambitious and gets screwed by ambitious people’s big ego shenanigans, which he falls into by accident when he unthinkingly steps outside his work comfort zone for a minute. So far, so good. But then, while he’s desperately trying to save his job and reputation, he’s also… not? Like, why would this sort of overly serious but otherwise very normal young-ish middle class man immediately and inexplicably decide not to seek medical treatment for a profoundly disfiguring injury? Why does he never even actually try to show to his fiancee that the revelation that causes the breakdown of their relationship was completely fictitious? It makes no sense! Except, the author is lazily destroying Lech’s social capital to make it make sense that he’s now a slow horse for life. 

Similarly, River can’t have Sid in S1 because she is a bright and well-rounded person while he is cute but also an idiot nepo baby manchild. So do the books resolve this imbalance by allowing River to grow - or even just change - in response to various challenges like dashed career aspirations, finally meeting his psychopath biodad, the steep mental decline of his beloved father figure, etc? No. Instead of letting River at least attempt to grow up, the books put River and Sid on a level by cutting Sid down instead - putting her in protection (ie. cutting all her social ties) and giving her a traumatic brain injury that hollows out her previously bright personality. Heaven knows we’re all miserable now. Sure do hope they fix that plotline for the show! I love them as endgame and I honestly think the show could do something so satisfying and poignant with them finally finding their missed connection but the books make the way they finally get together so creepy and sad.

[263adder]

Mick Herron - why do you keep making me fall in love with characters and then kill them off 2 books later 😭 Min was bad enough okay

[littledozerdraws]

river plsss 😭😭🙉

[johnnyspells]

RIVER CARTWRIGHT & JAMES "SPIDER" WEBB ● Slow Horses S03E03

[hr-twink]

River/Spider + textposts because literally every one i came across fit

[isthatacalzone]

been rewatching S4 and thinking about the fact when River was probably at his most terrified, trying to figure out why someone was trying to kill his grandfather and how to protect him, the logical conclusion he came to was Standish. Standish is safe. he can go to France and not be preoccupied with how his ailing grandfather is faring because Catherine Standish is looking after him.

and then I start thinking how proud Standish must have felt when River turned up at her door with the most important person in his life and said "please look after him". Catherine Standish, who for so long was seen as a risk because of her addiction - someone unreliable and not to be trusted, trusted with someone that precious. no wonder she took it so seriously when Lamb turned up on her doorstep. "River asked me to look after him", and by god was she going to

[snowfallnight]

[mostlyghostie]

Very happy with how this one came out! Latest favourite books commission.

I’ve read more o these than any other commission I’ve done too (8, I haven’t read Brideshead Revisited or Love in the Time of Cholera yet)

Shop / Instagram

[moonshynecybin]

river cartwright is fun bc he’s a spy sure but he’ll also cry and vomit

[waytoomanyhandgestures]

I’m reading Dead Lions (the second slow horses book) and there’s a bit where River is with his grandfather and it mentions that he only ever drinks whiskey with his grandfather. And then I was thinking about that scene at the end of the season 4 finale and River is drinking whiskey with Lamb and Lamb being River’s father figure is so precious to me

[countessrivers]

I will say, as excellent as this season was, I'm a little disappointed that the show didn't include from the books:

Patrice, after kidnapping River and fucking him up a bit for trying to escape, telling concerned onlookers that River is his boyfriend and he's totally just having a panic attack because he's claustrophobic and can't handle public transport.

Patrice kissing River on the cheek goodbye as he goes off to murder his colleagues, and promising that they'll talk later (with the pretty strong undercurrent throughout the book that there was Something between Patrice and River's secret half-brother who he looks a lot alike)

and

Frank kissing River on the mouth before just fucking yeeting him into the Thames to buy himself time to escape and Louisa having to dive in and rescue him

[wiseoldwine]

[ffrederiks]

"A couple of years later, the world was upside down. Partner was dead; Slough House was up and running; and Jackson Lamb was king.

And for some reason, Catherine Standish was beside him. Lamb had asked for her specifically, she discovered, but he never gave her one hint why. And she’d never asked him. If he’d had designs on her, he was years too late; there’d been a time when she’d have slept with him without giving it much thought, or remembering it afterwards, but since drying out she’d been more particular, and had slept with precisely no one. And if that ever changed, it wasn’t going to be for Jackson Lamb."

© Mick Herron, "Slow Horses"

[too-many-rooks]

As his father -

[johnnyspells]

RIVER CARTWRIGHT ● Slow Horses - Boardroom Politics - S02E05

[hr-twink]

losing my mind a little because i never noticed but he has the fucking mole