Novel series → TV series · Direct adaptation

Slow Horses (Slough House novels) → Slow Horses (2022–present)

Apple TV+ adapts one Mick Herron novel per season through Season 5, covering five of the nine published books. The Hassan Ahmed kidnapping and its false-flag reveal, Min Harper's disguised murder, and Dennis Gimball's death by falling paint bucket all carry over close to the page. Diana Taverner's ambition and MI5's internal politics sit further forward on screen than in the novels.

Source

Slow Horses (Slough House novels) · Novel series · 2010–2025 · 9 novels published to date — Slow Horses (2010), Dead Lions (2013), Real Tigers (2016), Spook Street (2017), London Rules (2018), Joe Country (2019), Slough House (2021), Bad Actors (2022), Clown Town (2025) — plus 5 novellas not scored in this record

Mick Herron (author)

John Murray / Hodder & Stoughton (UK); Soho Press (US)

Adaptation

Slow Horses · TV series · 2022–present · 5 seasons aired to date, 6 episodes each (30 episodes); Season 6 premieres September 16, 2026

Will Smith (creator and showrunner (Seasons 1–5)), Mick Herron (based on the novels by)

See-Saw Films

TrueToPage 89 · Slow Horses (2022–present Broadcast series) · v0.3censuscatalog score

Both the novel series and the show are ongoing. This record covers the 9 novels published and the 5 seasons aired as of September 2026. Season 6, premiering September 16, 2026, adapts the sixth and seventh novels, Joe Country and Slough House, in one season, and is not scored here.

Joe Country, Slough House, Bad Actors, and Clown Town have no screen adaptation yet. Each is one omitted mapping row at whole-book grain, while the five adapted novels are broken into beats. The coverage axis therefore runs across a mixed grain (see the coverage note) and is not a beat-for-beat completion figure for the nine-book story.

Five novellas (The List, The Marylebone Drop, The Catch, The Last Dead Letter, Standing by the Wall) sit outside this record's mapping, coverage, and work-node unit count.

Research depth varies by season. Season 1 and Season 5 carry the most cross-checked sourcing in this record; Season 2 and Season 3 rest on thinner sourcing gathered before this session's search budget was exhausted. Their by_era composites are provisional rather than confirmed findings; see the REPORT.

Sid Baker's arc is left open on screen through Season 5. The novels give her secret survival and return in the seventh novel, Slough House, which the show has not reached.

Will Smith created and wrote Seasons 1 through 5. Gaby Chiappe is head writer for the announced Season 6. The change is recorded in the change log and is not itself scored.

Fidelity

Higher = more of the source is still true. Fidelity is not quality.

Season 1 (2022)

The kidnapping, the false-flag reveal, Sid Baker's shooting and her erasure from Service records, and Hassan's escape are kept close to the novel. Six of the season's eight mapping rows carry high-confidence sourcing.

Season 2 (2022)

Only Min Harper's disguised murder and Louisa Guy's part in the fallout could be sourced with confidence for this season. The novel's wider Cold War sleeper-agent plot sits in the mapping as one row with thin evidence, so it leaves the arithmetic. The figure records the depth of this session's research rather than a confirmed finding about the season; see the REPORT.

Season 3 (2023)

The kidnapping-for-leverage plot and River's break-in at Regent's Park carry over. The one sourced change is Catherine Standish and Sean Donovan's relationship, a prior romance in the novel and a first meeting at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on screen.

Season 4 (2024)

The Westacres bombing, David Cartwright's dementia and the plot to kill him, and River's France investigation are kept. The Whelan and Taverner power struggle is compressed into fewer confrontations, and Catherine Standish's position outside the Service is restaged.

Season 5 (2025)

Gimball's accidental death by falling paint bucket, the blackmail chain that ends Whelan's tenure, and Taverner's promotion to First Desk are kept. Mick Herron said in September 2025 that he discussed this season's departures in advance and instigated some of them himself. The season's one invented beat is Louisa Guy's extended absence.

Plot structure82Across 30 scored mapping rows weighted by rough source length, 23 rows are kept: the Hassan Ahmed kidnapping and its false-flag reveal, Min Harper's disguised murder, Catherine Standish's abduction, David Cartwright's assassination plot and River's France investigation, and Dennis Gimball's death. Two rows are reordered, Standish and Sean Donovan's relationship in Season 3 and Standish's position outside the Service in Season 4, and one is condensed, the Whelan and Taverner power struggle in Season 4. The four novels with no screen counterpart hold 11 of the 69 weight units at zero credit. The by_era figures below report the aired seasons separately.partial evidenceN = 30 beats, source weight 69

Character93The prominence-weighted mean of eleven scored characters is 93. Seven score 100: River Cartwright, Roddy Ho, Min Harper, Shirley Dander, Marcus Longridge, Sid Baker, and David Cartwright. Sid Baker's later survival is marked not depicted, because the novel that reveals it is not yet adapted, and it leaves her denominator. Jackson Lamb scores 80 on two altered traits, the narrated interiority the show replaces with performance and the earlier placement of his role in Charles Partner's death. Catherine Standish scores 83 on the restaged shape of her departure from and return to the Service, Louisa Guy 80 on a screen-original absence, and Diana Taverner 88 on how far forward the show places her role in MI5's politics. The 100 scores on River and several supporting agents record what this session could source, not a confirmed absence of change; see the REPORT.partial evidenceN = 11 people, weight 25

Dialogue & voice92Of 12 inventoried voice markers, the long-series minimum, 11 are preserved: the rotating third-person point of view, the bureaucratic-satire humor, the sardonic dialogue register, the cross-cutting between subplots, the in-universe jargon (Slough House, the Park, First Desk, a Joe), the 'London Rules' motto, the focus on washouts rather than elite agents, Lamb's crude insult humor, the deadpan handling of sudden death, the satire of contemporary British populism, and Lamb's nicknames for the people around him. One marker is altered: the novels narrate Jackson Lamb's own thoughts, and the show carries him through performance without narration.partial evidenceN = 12 voice markers

Theme & tone86Of 7 inventoried thematic claims, 6 are preserved: bureaucratic self-preservation ahead of duty, self-worth found from inside disgrace, loyalty as a private code beneath open cruelty, the moral costs of intelligence work, contemporary British anxiety about terrorism and populism, and Cold War sins resurfacing to threaten the present. One is altered: image management inside MI5 is peripheral in the novels and central on screen, carried by Diana Taverner's ambition and the Whelan and Taverner struggle.partial evidenceN = 7 thematic claims

Coverage87At the mapping table's mixed grain, 26 of 30 scored source units appear on screen in some form. The grain is uneven by design: each adapted novel is broken into 3 to 8 beats, while each of the four novels with no screen counterpart (Joe Country, Slough House, Bad Actors, Clown Town) stays a single row. The figure therefore runs higher than a beat-by-beat count across all nine novels would, and it does not say that 87 percent of the story has reached the screen. Two mapping rows carry thin evidence and leave the arithmetic: the number and fate of the Season 1 kidnappers, and the Cold War sleeper plot behind Dead Lions.partial evidenceN = 26 of 30 source units present

Additions restraint93Against 26 counted source beats, the change log records two invented beats across the five seasons: a fourth kidnapper, nicknamed Zeppo, added to the Hassan Ahmed plot, and Louisa Guy's extended leave in Season 5. The other eleven change-log rows record no invented beat, so they do not enter this axis.partial evidenceN = 26 source beats, 2 invented

■ TrueToPage fidelity by era. Eras with no published source text are unscored, not zero. Reception scores (Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb) will appear here under licence; until then the linked pages carry them.

Ending

Side by side, in our words.

On the page · Slow Horses (Slough House novels)

London Rules (2018) is the most recent novel the show has adapted. In it Dennis Gimball is killed by a falling paint bucket during a botched protection detail, and Claude Whelan's attempt to blackmail him lapses when Gimball dies before it takes effect, leaving Whelan's position weakened. The novel series is ongoing: as of the ninth novel, Clown Town (2025), Mick Herron has not closed the Slough House story.

On the screen · Slow Horses

Season 5 (2025) ends on close to the same beat. Gimball is killed by the same accidental paint-bucket strike while JK Coe and River protect him. Jackson Lamb then uses Gimball's own recording of Whelan to force Whelan's resignation, and Diana Taverner is confirmed as First Desk. The season closes on Lamb's bare, scarred feet, which points back to a Cold War torture story he told earlier as his own.

The load-bearing beats are the same: Gimball's accidental death and Whelan's fall from power both carry over. The show adds a closing image, Lamb's feet, that works as a season-ending reveal rather than a series-ending one. Neither version has reached a final ending, with four novels unadapted and two further seasons confirmed.

Mapping

33 rows. Every source unit, including the ones that never appear.

Source unit	What happens there	On screen	Notes	Tag	Evidence
Slow Horses (2010), the Sons of Albion kidnapping	Hassan Ahmed, a British-Pakistani student, is abducted by the far-right Sons of Albion, who threaten a livestreamed execution.	Season 1 (2022)	kept. The abduction and the threatened execution are the season's central plot.	primary	strong
Slow Horses (2010), Alan Black planted among the kidnappers	Diana Taverner secretly places Alan Black, a former Slow Horse, inside the kidnappers' cell.	Season 1 (2022)	kept		strong
Slow Horses (2010), the false-flag reveal	The kidnapping is revealed to be a false-flag operation Taverner orchestrated to win the Service political and budgetary capital.	Season 1 (2022)	kept. The reveal is the central turn in both versions.	primary	strong
Slow Horses (2010), Sid Baker is shot	Sid Baker is shot during the plot's climax while helping protect journalist Robert Hobden from an assassination attempt.	Season 1 (2022)	kept	primary	strong
Slow Horses (2010), Sid Baker's fate is left officially unresolved	After being shot, all records of Sid Baker are wiped from MI5's systems and her status is left unknown to the reader.	Season 1 (2022) onward	kept. The show erases her records too and leaves her fate unconfirmed through Season 5.		strong
Slow Horses (2010), the kidnappers' number and fate	The novel gives the kidnappers as a group of three, of whom only Alan Black is confirmed killed once his betrayal is discovered.	Season 1 (2022)	reordered. The show adds a fourth kidnapper and shows two of them shot; the novel confirms only Black's death.		thinnot scored
Slow Horses (2010), Hassan's escape	Hassan escapes during the kidnappers' internal argument over whether to execute him and is rescued by police alerted by the Slow Horses' investigation.	Season 1 (2022)	kept		strong
Slow Horses (2010), River's King's Cross training failure	River Cartwright's disastrous training simulation at King's Cross — misidentifying a target and triggering a mock evacuation and 'detonation' — is the reason he is exiled to Slough House.	Season 1 (2022)	kept		partial
Dead Lions (2013), Min Harper's murder	Min Harper is killed in a hit staged to look like a drunken cycling accident.	Season 2 (2022)	kept. Both versions stage the murder as an ordinary accident.	primary	strong
Dead Lions (2013), Louisa Guy's involvement	Louisa Guy, Min's partner, is drawn into the investigation and fallout of his death.	Season 2 (2022)	kept		partial
Dead Lions (2013), the Cold War sleeper plot	A Cold War-era sleeper-agent plot involving Russian operatives sits behind Min's death and the season's wider mystery.	Season 2 (2022)	kept, per the sourcing available. This record could not confirm the plot's mechanics independently, so the row carries thin evidence and leaves the arithmetic.		thinnot scored
Real Tigers (2016), Catherine Standish's kidnapping	Catherine Standish is abducted as leverage against Slough House.	Season 3 (2023)	kept	primary	partial
Real Tigers (2016), Sean Donovan's scheme	Standish's kidnapper, Sean Donovan, a former military man, runs an operation intended to embarrass MI5.	Season 3 (2023)	kept		partial
Real Tigers (2016), River's break-in at Regent's Park	River is coerced into breaking into MI5's headquarters to retrieve a secret file in exchange for Standish's safety.	Season 3 (2023)	kept		partial
Real Tigers (2016), Standish and Donovan's prior relationship	The novel gives Standish and Donovan a prior romantic relationship as her ex-lover.	Season 3 (2023)	reordered. On screen the two meet as strangers at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, with Donovan posing as a member.		partial
Spook Street (2017), the Westacres bombing and David Cartwright's dementia	A bombing at the Westacres shopping centre opens the story, while David Cartwright, River's grandfather and a legendary retired MI5 spymaster now suffering dementia, becomes a target for assassination.	Season 4 (2024)	kept	primary	strong
Spook Street (2017), River's France investigation	River travels to France, assuming a dead assassin's identity, and discovers an abandoned compound tied to a Cold War-era sleeper-agent breeding scheme.	Season 4 (2024)	kept	primary	strong
Spook Street (2017), River's presumed death	River lets himself be presumed dead so he can investigate outside MI5's oversight, with Jackson Lamb covering for him.	Season 4 (2024)	kept		strong
Spook Street (2017), Claude Whelan's arrival	Claude Whelan arrives as the new First Desk (Director-General) of MI5.	Season 4 (2024)	kept		partial
Spook Street (2017), the Whelan/Taverner power struggle	The novel plays out Whelan and Taverner's struggle for control of MI5 at a slower, more drawn-out pace.	Season 4 (2024)	condensed into fewer, more direct confrontations.		partial
Spook Street (2017), Catherine Standish's status	Standish's relationship to formal Service work shifts around this point in the story.	Season 4 (2024)	reordered. On screen she works outside MI5 as a civilian in order to protect David Cartwright, a different arrangement from the novel's.		partial
London Rules (2018), the Jaffrey/Gimball rivalry and terror attacks	A wave of apparently random terror attacks is tied to the political rivalry between Zafar Jaffrey and Dennis Gimball.	Season 5 (2025)	kept	primary	partial
London Rules (2018), the threat to Roddy Ho	Someone is trying to kill Roddy Ho.	Season 5 (2025)	kept		partial
London Rules (2018), Roddy Ho and Kim	The novel follows Roddy Ho's relationship with his girlfriend Kim.	Season 5 (2025)	kept. Kim's use of the relationship to breach MI5's systems appears in both versions.		strong
London Rules (2018), Whelan's blackmail attempt	Claude Whelan attempts to blackmail Dennis Gimball using damaging personal information.	Season 5 (2025)	kept		partial
London Rules (2018), Gimball's death	JK Coe and River Cartwright, protecting Gimball, accidentally kill him when a paint bucket falls on his head during the operation.	Season 5 (2025)	kept. A book-plot summary and a Season 5 finale recap describe the same accidental death.	primary	strong
London Rules (2018), Lamb's counter-blackmail	Jackson Lamb uses a recording Gimball made of Whelan to blackmail Whelan in turn.	Season 5 (2025)	kept		strong
London Rules (2018), Taverner becomes First Desk	Diana Taverner is confirmed as First Desk following Whelan's resignation.	Season 5 (2025)	kept		strong
No published novel counterpart found	Nothing in this research surfaced a London Rules counterpart for Louisa Guy's extended absence.	Season 5 (2025)	invented. Louisa Guy is written out for most of the season on an extended mental-health leave she privately intends to make permanent.		partial
Joe Country (2019)	The sixth novel in the series; not yet adapted for the screen.	omitted (scheduled for Season 6, premiering September 16, 2026)	omitted. No episode has adapted this novel.		strong
Slough House (2021)	The seventh novel in the series, in which Sid Baker's secret survival and return are revealed; not yet adapted for the screen.	omitted (scheduled for Season 6, premiering September 16, 2026)	omitted. No episode has adapted this novel.		strong
Bad Actors (2022)	The eighth novel in the series; not yet adapted for the screen.	omitted (slated for the renewed Season 7)	omitted. No episode has adapted this novel.		strong
Clown Town (2025)	The ninth and most recent novel in the series; not yet adapted for the screen.	omitted — no season has been confirmed to adapt this novel	omitted. The novel was published after Season 5 aired.		strong

Change log

The argument. The mapping above is the evidence.

Invented
A fourth kidnapper, nicknamed "Zeppo" on screen, is added to the Hassan Ahmed plot, and two kidnappers are shown shot; the novel confirms only Alan Black's death.
Slow Horses (2010), the kidnappers' fate → Season 1 (2022)
Adds a named character to the cell and puts more of the kidnappers' deaths on screen than the novel states.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Tonal shift
Sid Baker's fate after the shooting is left open on screen, through Diana Taverner's statement that she passed away, in place of the novel's secret recovery at a Service facility.
Slow Horses (2010), Sid Baker's evacuation to a Secret Service facility in the Lake District → Season 1 (2022) finale onward
Leaves open a question the novels answer, so what the audience knows about her fate differs through Season 5.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Invented
Louisa Guy is given an extended mental-health leave in Season 5 that she privately intends to make permanent. No counterpart was found in the London Rules novel.
no confirmed novel counterpart found → Season 5 (2025)
Removes an established lead from most of a season for a reason this research could not trace to the novel.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Tonal shift
Diana Taverner is written as more overtly ambitious and closer to the center of the show's political plotting than the more institutionally cautious version in the novels.
throughout the novels → Season 1 (2022) onward
Moves MI5's internal power struggle nearer the front of the story than the novels place it.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Identity / design change
Catherine Standish and Sean Donovan are ex-lovers in the novel and strangers on screen, meeting at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where Donovan poses as a fellow member.
Real Tigers (2016) → Season 3 (2023)
Removes a prior romantic history between the two, so her kidnapping runs on a different relationship.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Condensed
The Whelan and Taverner power struggle, drawn out across the novel, is compressed into fewer, more direct confrontations on screen.
Spook Street (2017) → Season 4 (2024)
Reaches the same outcome in fewer scenes and less screen time.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Reordered
Catherine Standish's move away from formal Service work is restaged around protecting David Cartwright as a civilian, a different arrangement from the novel's.
Spook Street (2017) → Season 4 (2024)
Changes the circumstances that place her outside MI5 during Season 4.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Reordered
The show foreshadows Jackson Lamb's role in killing Charles Partner in Season 1; the novels withhold the full reveal for several books.
throughout the novels → Season 1 (2022)
Moves one of the story's foundational facts earlier in what the audience knows.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Kept, unflinching
Min Harper's murder stays an undignified death disguised as a drunken cycling accident in both versions.
Dead Lions (2013) → Season 2 (2022)
The killing of a lead is staged as an ordinary accident rather than as a set piece, in both versions.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Kept, unflinching
Dennis Gimball's accidental death by a falling paint bucket is kept nearly exactly.
London Rules (2018) → Season 5 (2025)
The season's political antagonist dies by accident rather than in a confrontation, as in the novel.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Tonal shift
Jackson Lamb's interior thoughts, narrated directly in the novels, are carried on screen by performance without narration.
throughout the novels → Season 1 (2022) onward
The audience infers his motives and loyalty from performance instead of reading them directly.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Omitted
Sid Baker's secret recovery and return, revealed in the novel Slough House, have not appeared on screen through Season 5.
Slough House (2021) → not yet adapted
A novel reveal about one of Season 1's central agents has not reached the screen.
Attribution: unknown / production decision
Condensed
Season 6, premiering September 16, 2026, adapts Joe Country and Slough House across a single six-episode season, the first time the show has taken two novels into one season.
Joe Country (2019) and Slough House (2021) → Season 6 (2026)
Doubles the source material carried by one season's episode count, departing from the one-book-per-season pattern of Seasons 1 to 5.
Attribution: Gaby Chiappe, head writer for Season 6, per trade press coverage

People

Trait score = attested traits kept ÷ attested traits shown. Unstated traits are not rows.

Jackson LambleadAltered8/10 attested traits kept80

Lamb's history, methods, and moral code transfer. Both altered traits concern delivery and timing: narrated interiority becomes performance, and his role in Charles Partner's death is foreshadowed earlier than the novels reveal it. Neither alters a stated fact about him.

Identity	A legendary former field agent who served in East Berlin during the Cold Warthroughout the novels	preservedstrong
Personality	Deliberately crude, insulting, and slovenly in his personal habits, masking sharp perceptivenessthroughout the novels	preservedstrong
Moral code	Lives by one rule above all others: never leave a Joe behindthroughout the novels	preservedpartial
Relationships	Secretly killed Charles Partner, MI5's Director-General and a Soviet double agent, on David Cartwright's ordersSlow Horses and later novels	preservedstrong
Vocation / role	Runs Slough House, MI5's dumping ground for disgraced agentsthroughout the novels	preservedstrong
Voice	In the novels his interior thoughts are directly narrated; the show instead conveys him almost entirely through Gary Oldman's external performanceMick Herron said in January 2026 that Oldman's Lamb amounts to a second version of the character alongside the page version. · throughout the novels	alteredpartial
Arc	Increasingly shown protecting his 'slow horses' despite his outward contempt for themthroughout the novels	preservedpartial
Plot function	Uncovers and disrupts Diana Taverner's false-flag operation in the Hassan Ahmed kidnappingSlow Horses (2010)	preservedstrong
Body / ability	Has scarred feet from a Cold War-era torture he rarely discusseslater novels	preservedpartial
Arc	The show foreshadows his role in killing Charles Partner earlier in the story than the novels, which withhold the reveal for several booksA change in when the fact reaches the audience, not in the fact itself. · throughout the novels	alteredpartial

River CartwrightleadSame9/9 attested traits kept100

Every sourced trait carries over unchanged. No River-specific alteration surfaced in this session's research, which is a limit of the research as much as a finding; see the REPORT.

Identity	Grandson of David Cartwright, a legendary retired MI5 spymaster who raised himthroughout the novels	preservedstrong
Vocation / role	An MI5 field agent exiled to Slough House after a botched King's Cross training simulationSlow Horses (2010)	preservedpartial
Plot function	His training-exercise failure — misidentifying a target and triggering a mock evacuation and 'detonation' that would have killed or maimed over a hundred people in a live operation — is the reason for his exileSlow Horses (2010)	preservedpartial
Personality	Idealistic and eager to prove himself, chafing against his 'slow horse' statusthroughout the novels	preservedpartial
Relationships	Raised by his grandfather David after his parents' absence; David is his primary father figurethroughout the novels	preservedpartial
Arc	Goes off the books, assuming a dead man's identity, to investigate an attempt on his grandfather's life in FranceSpook Street (2017)	preservedstrong
Plot function	Uncovers his grandfather's role in ordering Charles Partner's killingSpook Street (2017) and earlier novels	preservedpartial
Plot function	Assigned, alongside JK Coe, to protect Dennis Gimball, and inadvertently causes his deathLondon Rules (2018)	preservedstrong
Relationships	Partners in the field with Sid Baker, who is shot during the Hassan Ahmed operationSlow Horses (2010)	preservedstrong

Diana TavernerleadAltered7/8 attested traits kept88

Taverner's ambition, methods, and rise to First Desk carry over. The one altered trait is her placement in the story: the show puts her political maneuvering further forward than the novels do.

Vocation / role	MI5's Deputy Director, later First Desk (Director-General)throughout the novels	preservedstrong
Personality	Ruthless, ambitious, and calculatingthroughout the novels	preservedstrong
Personality	Written as more overtly Machiavellian and central to the show's political intrigue than in the novels, where she operates with more institutional cautionThe show places her nearer the center of the story than the novels do. · throughout the novels	alteredpartial
Moral code	Willing to orchestrate ethically dubious, unauthorized operations, including false-flag stunts, to advance the Service's and her own positionSlow Horses (2010)	preservedstrong
Plot function	Plants Alan Black inside the Hassan Ahmed kidnapping as a publicity stunt to justify the Service's counter-terrorism budgetSlow Horses (2010)	preservedstrong
Plot function	Outmaneuvers Claude Whelan, eventually becoming First Desk after his forced resignationSpook Street (2017) and London Rules (2018)	preservedstrong
Relationships	Maintains a wary, adversarial-but-mutually-respecting relationship with Jackson Lambthroughout the novels	preservedpartial
Arc	Her rivalries with other MI5 leaders for control of the Service recur across the seriesthroughout the novels	preservedpartial

Catherine StandishsupportingAltered5/6 attested traits kept83

Standish's history with Charles Partner and her operational work transfer. The altered trait is the shape of her departure from the Service and her return.

Vocation / role	Nominally Slough House's office administrator and Jackson Lamb's assistant, but operationally capable, including conducting interrogations and negotiationsthroughout the novels	preservedpartial
Personality	A recovering alcoholic maintaining long-term sobrietythroughout the novels	preservedstrong
Relationships	Formerly personal secretary to Charles Partner, MI5's Director-General, before his deathbackstory, early novels	preservedstrong
Moral code	Fiercely, almost fanatically loyal to Partner's memory, which puts her at odds with Lamb, who secretly killed himbackstory, early novels	preservedstrong
Arc	Steps back from Slough House at one point in the story, later returning specifically to help protect River's grandfather David CartwrightThe show restages her departure and return. One secondary source used for the comparison carries a factual error elsewhere in its own book comparison, so this row is held at medium confidence. · Real Tigers (2016) and Spook Street (2017)	alteredpartial
Plot function	Is abducted as leverage against Slough House by an outside operatorReal Tigers (2016)	preservedpartial

Roddy HosupportingSame5/5 attested traits kept100