Search Results for: slough house

*THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*

‘Slough House is the best yet’ TLS
‘Genuinely thrilling’ Daily Telegraph
‘Herron’s best novel yet’ Sunday Express
‘Superb’ Irish Times
‘Brilliant’ Literary Review

‘Kill us? They’ve never needed to kill us,’ said Lamb. ‘I mean, look at us. What would be the point?’

A year after a calamitous blunder by the Russian secret service left a British citizen dead from novichok poisoning, Diana Taverner is on the warpath. What seems a gutless response from the government has pushed the Service’s First Desk into mounting her own counter-offensive – but she’s had to make a deal with the devil first. And given that the devil in question is arch-manipulator Peter Judd, she could be about to lose control of everything she’s fought for.

Meanwhile, still reeling from recent losses, the slow horses are worried they’ve been pushed further into the cold. Slough House has been wiped from Service records, and fatal accidents keep happening. No wonder Jackson Lamb’s crew are feeling paranoid. But have they actually been targeted?

With a new populist movement taking a grip on London’s streets, and the old order ensuring that everything’s for sale to the highest bidder, the world’s an uncomfortable place for those deemed surplus to requirements. The wise move would be to find a safe place and wait for the troubles to pass.

But the slow horses aren’t famed for making wise decisions.

‘I think this might be the best Jackson Lamb outing yet’ Christopher Brookmyre

‘Herron has certainly devised the most completely realised espionage universe since that peopled by George Smiley’ The Times

‘This is a darker, scarier Herron. The gags are still there but the satire’s more biting. The privatization of a secret service op and the manipulation of news is relevant and horribly credible’ Ann Cleeves

‘I’ll tell you what, to have been lucky enough to play Smiley in one’s career; and now go and play Jackson Lamb in Mick Herron’s novels – the heir, in a way, to le Carre – is a terrific thing’ Gary Oldman

‘Mick Herron is one of the finest writers of his generation’ Steve Cavanagh

‘I enjoyed Slough House tremendously. Witty, clever and horribly on point. Lots to laugh about while being careful not to miss a word. This isn’t a book to skim read’ Kit de Waal

‘[Jackson Lamb] Herron’s glorious creation propels the story to the bitter end where the non-stop barrage of jokes is fatally undercut by a final shocking twist’ Evening Standard

‘An excellent writer’ Sunday Times

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLDSBORO GOLD DAGGER AND THE IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER

SHORTLISTED FOR THE THEAKSTON OLD PECULIAR CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR

‘If you read one spy novel this year, read Real Tigers‘ The Spectator

‘The finest new crime series this millennium’ Mail on Sunday

Catherine Standish knows that chance encounters never happen to spooks.

She’s worked in the Intelligence Service long enough to understand treachery, double-dealing and stabbing in the back.

What she doesn’t know is why anyone would target her: a recovering drunk pushing paper with the other lost causes in Jackson Lamb’s kingdom of exiles at Slough House.

Whoever it is holding her hostage, it can’t be personal. It must be about Slough House. Most likely, it is about Jackson Lamb.

And say what you like about Lamb, he’ll never leave a joe in the lurch.

He might even be someone you could trust with your life . . .

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*

*Soon to be a TV series starring Oscar-award winning actor Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb*

‘The new king of the spy thriller’ Mail on Sunday

‘Razor-sharp prose, fully formed characters and an underlying pathos make this series the most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War’ The Times

‘We’re spies,’ said Lamb. ‘All kinds of outlandish shit goes on.’

In Slough House memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.

And with winter taking its grip Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.

This time, they’re heading into joe country. And they’re not all coming home.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER*

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE THEAKSTON OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR*

‘Mick Herron is fast becoming the go-to author for British espionage, and the sixth novel in his Slough House series, Joe Country, is up to his usual high standard’ Guardian

‘As a master of wit, satire, insight… Herron is difficult to overpraise’ Daily Telegraph

‘Irresistible writing … ironclad storytelling and off-kilter humour’ Financial Times

‘Mick Herron’s novels are a satirical chronicle of modern Britain . . . in their gleefully shocking way, his books reflect the trajectory of the nation’ Economist

‘A first-rate modern thriller’ Daily Mail

Set in the same fictional London as the CWA Dagger Award-winning Slough House series, Nobody Walks introduces JK Coe, a fledgling spy who’s about to get a harsh lesson in the realities of life on Spook Street.

Tom Bettany is working at a meat processing plant in France when he gets a voicemail telling him that his estranged 26-year-old son is dead – Liam Bettany fell from his London balcony, where he was smoking pot.

Now for the first time since he cut all ties years ago, Bettany returns home to London to find out the truth about his son’s death. But more than a few people are interested to hear Bettany is back in town, from incarcerated mob bosses to those in the highest echelons of MI5. And some of them – like JK Coe – will have cause to regret his reappearance.

Bettany might have thought he’d left it all behind when he first skipped town, but nobody ever really walks away.

*Picked as a ‘best thriller of the last decade’ by The Times*

*Soon to be a TV series starring Oscar-award winning actor Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb*

‘The new king of the spy thriller’ Mail on Sunday

‘Razor-sharp prose, fully formed characters and an underlying pathos make this series the most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War’ The Times

You don’t stop being a spook just because you’re no longer in the game.

Banished to Slough House from the ranks of achievers at Regent’s Park for various crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal, Jackson Lamb’s misfit crew of highly trained joes don’t run ops, they push paper.

But not one of them joined the Intelligence Service to be a ‘slow horse’.

A boy is kidnapped and held hostage. His beheading is scheduled for live broadcast on the net. And whatever the instructions of the Service, the slow horses aren’t going to just sit quiet and watch . .

‘As a master of wit, satire, insight… Herron is difficult to overpraise’ Daily Telegraph

‘Irresistible writing … ironclad storytelling and off-kilter humour’ Financial Times

‘Mick Herron’s novels are a satirical chronicle of modern Britain . . . in their gleefully shocking way, his books reflect the trajectory of the nation’ Economist

*Soon to be a TV series starring Oscar-award winning actor Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb*

‘The new king of the spy thriller’ Mail on Sunday

‘Razor-sharp prose, fully formed characters and an underlying pathos make this series the most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War’ The Times

Winner of the 2013 CWA Gold Dagger Award

Dickie Bow is not an obvious target for assassination.

But once a spook, always a spook. And Dickie was a talented streetwalker back in the day, before he turned up dead on a bus. A shadow. Good at following people, bringing home their secrets.

Dickie was in Berlin with Jackson Lamb. Now Lamb’s got his phone, and on it the last secret Dickie ever told, and reason to believe an old-time Moscow-style op is being run in the Service’s back-yard.

In the Intelligence Service purgatory that is Slough House, Jackson Lamb’s crew of back-office no-hopers is about to go live . . .

‘As a master of wit, satire, insight… Herron is difficult to overpraise’ Daily Telegraph

‘Irresistible writing … ironclad storytelling and off-kilter humour’ Financial Times

‘Mick Herron’s novels are a satirical chronicle of modern Britain . . . in their gleefully shocking way, his books reflect the trajectory of the nation’ Economist

*Soon to be a TV series starring Oscar-award winning actor Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb*

‘The new king of the spy thriller’ Mail on Sunday

‘Razor-sharp prose, fully formed characters and an underlying pathos make this series the most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War’ The Times

‘A terrific spy novel: sublime dialogue, frictionless plotting’ Ian Rankin

WINNER OF THE CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER

Never outlive your ability to survive a fight. Twenty years retired, David Cartwright can still spot when the stoats are on his trail.

Jackson Lamb worked with Cartwright back in the day. He knows better than most that this is no vulnerable old man. ‘Nasty old spook with blood on his hands’ would be a more accurate description.

‘The old bastard’ has raised his grandson with a head full of guts and glory. But far from joining the myths and legends of Spook Street, River Cartwright is consigned to Lamb’s team of pen-pushing no-hopers at Slough House.

So it’s Lamb they call to identify the body when Cartwright’s panic button raises the alarm at Service HQ. And Lamb who will do whatever he thinks necessary, to protect an agent in peril . . .

‘As a master of wit, satire, insight… Herron is difficult to overpraise’ Daily Telegraph

‘Irresistible writing … ironclad storytelling and off-kilter humour’ Financial Times

‘Mick Herron’s novels are a satirical chronicle of modern Britain . . . in their gleefully shocking way, his books reflect the trajectory of the nation’ Economist

*Soon to be a TV series starring Oscar-award winning actor Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb*

‘The new king of the spy thriller’ Mail on Sunday

‘Razor-sharp prose, fully formed characters and an underlying pathos make this series the most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War’ The Times

London Rules might not be written down, but everyone knows rule one. Cover your arse.

Regent’s Park’s First Desk, Claude Whelan, is learning this the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he’s facing attack from all directions himself: from the showboating MP who orchestrated the Brexit vote, and now has his sights set on Number Ten; from the showboat’s wife, a tabloid columnist, who’s crucifying Whelan in print; and especially from his own deputy, Lady Di Taverner, who’s alert for Claude’s every stumble.

Meanwhile, the country’s being rocked by an apparently random string of terror attacks, and someone’s trying to kill Roddy Ho.

Over at Slough House, the crew are struggling with personal problems: repressed grief, various addictions, retail paralysis, and the nagging suspicion that their newest colleague is a psychopath. But collectively, they’re about to rediscover their greatest strength – that of making a bad situation much, much worse.

It’s a good job Jackson Lamb knows the rules. Because those things aren’t going to break themselves.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER AND IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER

‘As a master of wit, satire, insight… Herron is difficult to overpraise’ Daily Telegraph

‘Irresistible writing … ironclad storytelling and off-kilter humour’ Financial Times

‘Mick Herron’s novels are a satirical chronicle of modern Britain . . . in their gleefully shocking way, his books reflect the trajectory of the nation’ Economist

Two Slough House Novellas

**THE DROP**

‘It is time Mick Herron was recognised in his own right as the best thriller writer in Britain today’ Sunday Express

Old spooks carry the memory of tradecraft in their bones, and when Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope being passed from one pair of hands to another in a Marylebone cafe, he knows he’s witnessed more than an innocent encounter. But in relaying his suspicions to John Bachelor, who babysits retired spies like Solly, he sets in train events which will alter lives. Bachelor himself, a hair’s breadth away from sleeping in his car, is clawing his way back to stability; Hannah Weiss, the double agent whose recruitment was his only success, is starting to enjoy the secrets and lies her role demands; and Lech Wicinski, an Intelligence Service analyst, finds that a simple favour for an old acquaintance might derail his career. Meanwhile, Lady Di Taverner is trying to keep the Service on an even keel, and if that means throwing the odd crew member overboard, well: collateral damage is her speciality.

A drop, in spook parlance, is the passing on of secret information.

It’s also what happens just before you hit the ground.


**THE LIST**

‘Mick Herron is an incredible writer and if you haven’t read him yet, you NEED to’ Mark Billingham

Dieter Hess, an aged spy, is dead, and John Bachelor, his MI5 handler, is in deep, deep trouble. Death has revealed that the deceased had been keeping a secret second bank account – and there’s only ever one reason a spy has a secret second bank account. The question of whether he was a double agent must be resolved, and its answer may undo an entire career’s worth of spy secrets.

**previously published as two separate editions**

‘This tightly plotted tragicomedy will provide a welcome fix for addicts awaiting Herron’s seventh Jackson Lamb novel’ The Times

‘Packed with Herron’s trademark witty one-liners and sardonic humour . . . it’s clear why Herron is a force to be reckoned with and the best thriller writer in Britain today’ Daily Express

‘A slim serio-comic offering . . . It plays out typically cleverly’ Sunday Times

If life in the Intelligence Service has taught John Bachelor anything, it’s to keep his head down. Especially now, when he’s living rent-free in a dead spook’s flat.

So he’s not delighted to be woken at dawn by a pair of Regent’s Park’s heavies, looking for a client he’s not seen in years. John doesn’t know what secrets Benny Manors has stolen, but they’re attracting the wrong attention. And if he’s to save his own skin, not to mention safeguard his living arrangements, John has to find Benny before those secrets see the light.

Benny could be anywhere, provided it serves alcohol. So John sets out on a reluctant trawl through the bars of the capital, all the while plagued by the age-old questions: Will he end up sleeping in his car? How many bottles of gin can he afford at London prices?

And just how far will Regent’s Park go to prevent anyone rocking the Establishment’s boat?