Content Warning: This section of the guide makes reference to kidnapping, threat, violence, and murder.

Slow Horses uses juxtaposition throughout to create tensions in the novel and to explore the themes’ often oppositional elements, such as tradition and modernity, trust and secrecy, loyalty and betrayal, and reputation and discretion.

The most notable juxtaposition of the novel is that between Slough House and Regent’s Park. Where Slough House is grim and gloomy, Regent’s Park is flooded with light and filled with busy people. Where Slough House is run by the disgraced and disheveled Jackson Lamb, Regent’s Park is headed by the elegant and cunning Diana Taverner, at least for the duration of this novel (Head Desk Ingrid Tearney is out of the country). Slough House is likened to a dungeon early in the book, whereas the image of Regent’s Park is elevated and shining, “the light at the top of the ladder” (45). When Slough House sits “in darkness” during the evenings, at Regent’s Park, “even when nothing was happening, there’d be enough people about for a midnight football match” (167). These juxtaposed images highlight that River and the other slow horses yearn to climb their way out of the darkness of failure and into the light of success.