This is the first book read in the quest to see if Read your color is indeed recommending good books (to your colour).
This book was recommended as a red recommendation with the motivation: “This became an Apple TV smash hit for a reason: you’re not going to be able to put it down. Herron blends dry gallows humor with real stakes, tightening the vise one chapter at a time. High stakes, moral gray zones, and a finale that’s one of the best payoffs in modern thrillers.“.
Slow Horses – Mick Herron
Original title: Slow Horses (2010)
Series: Slough House #1
Next book in the series: Dead Lions
Read edition: Swedish audiobook Slöa Hästar
Length: 13 hours, 50 minutes
5%: based on who the recommendation is for, someone liking fast paced stories, I was a bit disappointed with the beginning of the story. I get why the author wanted to do the first part, giving the background to why the main character became a slow horse. But after that, the oh so long description of the setting was not in my wheelhouse. Can’t we just get to the story? I don’t care what colour the doors have.
8%: still not really anything happened yet, we are being presented with a bunch of characters and since I haven’t read all in a go, I’m not completely sure of who is who.
22%: we’re still being introduced to people and getting their backstory. For being a “fast paced” book it’s really moving forward slow.
Final thoughts: I found the whole book a bit boring. It was slow paced, a lot of descriptions, many characters and I was never really invested. I listened to this mostly in the car but also had the option to switch to the ebook and read it on my phone or tablet but I was never really feeling an urge to pick it up.
As a recommendation to a red reader, I didn’t think it was a good fit. I was never sitting on the edge of my seat needing to know what happened. If I weren’t set on finishing it for the sake of this post (and to give the tv series a try), I would probably have slowly abandoned it. I’m however a bit inclined to try the TV series to see if I like the story better that way.
I gave the book 2 stars – it was OK.
Current tally of read books:
| Colour | Read books | Average rating |
| Red | 1 | 2 |
| Blue | 1 | 3 |
| Yellow | 4 | 4* |
| Orange | 0 | – |
| Green | 0 | – |
| Purple | 0 | – |
Red got both a read count and an average rating after this book.
*Only two of the yellow books are rated, I need to remind myself of what I thought of the other two.
Have You Read This One? 