Slow Horses by Mick Herron

The rain was stopping when Lamb pulled out of the car park.  River stared straight ahead, through the m-shape the wipers' last sweep had left, and didn't need to ask where they were headed.  They were going to Slough House.  Where else.
Mick Herron, Slow Horses (Soho Press, 2010).

I was excited about Mick Herron after reading his first novel (see my post of Feb. 18) only to be disillusioned by this spy novel of his, with all the worst ingredients of even the best spy novelists, such as John Le Carre:  confusion, manipulation and cardboard characters.  Slough House is where MI5 spies who screwed up -- leaving documents on the tube, failing training exercises, etc.-- are exiled.  The best part of Slow Horses is how much like any office Slough House is, with the lower echelons feuding with each other while being united with a dislike for the boss.  Nobody knows why anyone has been exiled and that allows the boss to manipulate the staff as much as Herron manipulates the reader.  Some of this is rather amusing --"this thing couldn't have fallen apart faster if you'd bought it Ikea" --but much it is fairly predictable, especially if one is familiar with the good and bad of spy fiction.