Clown Town, Mick Herron’s latest addition to his Slough House series, is an unputdownable thriller that encompasses all the elements we have come to love in these books, blending satire and pathos with whimsy and action.
The heart of the book (and series) is the wonderful ensemble cast of the ‘slow horses’, including the impetuous River Cartwright, the resourceful Sid Baker, Shirley Dander with her anger management issues, Louisa Guy—wondering how her life had turned out this way while trying to keep River out of trouble—Roddy Ho, the delusional computer genius, and Catherine Standish, the self-appointed head girl of the group. Each one has committed a horrific cock-up to end up in Slough House, where the ‘Service’ sends its rejects, placing them under the abrasive ministrations of Jackson Lamb.
Lamb is a veteran Cold War spy, who is so old school he should have been ‘closed down by Ofsted’. Now content to see out his days making the lives of the slow horses a misery, assigning meaningless administrative duties and running roughshod over them in a kind of psychological bootcamp designed to make people leave the Service.
River Cartwright, recovering from a near-death experience with Novichok, starts to investigate the disappearance of a book from his grandfather’s library, which has now become the focus of academic study by ‘Spook College’. The slow horses are drawn into a murky plot by forces beyond their understanding and control.”
Diana Taverner, The Park’s First Desk and another standout character, is being blackmailed by Peter Judd, the former Home Secretary, as well as by a group of ex-agents from the Service who are threatening to expose a controversial operation from the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles. The two story strands come together, and the slow horses’ involvement has disastrous consequences. Lamb, the only person who can see the big picture, takes matters into his own hands.
Lamb is a Harry Flashman for our times, an anti-hero who is completely aware of his failings and embraces them with a complete lack of concern or hypocrisy. If he hasn’t resolved the demons of his past, he has learnt to live with them as long as he has his kingdom in Slough House, Talisker and Chinese take-ways.
If any of those are threatened, there will be retribution. Lamb has a value system all of his own, chief among which is a responsibility for and loyalty to his people. Not out of any feelings he might have for them—they might be idiots, but they are his idiots. Lamb’s mantra is that you never leave a joe in the field, especially if they’re his joe. If you mess with them, you will see why Lamb, still a skilled operator, is regarded as a legend in the Service.”
Clown Town is a deftly plotted thriller, rich and atmospheric, with expertly drawn characters that have the reader gripped from the first page; but it is Lamb, as ever, who steals the show.

Clown Town is published by Baskerville

Alan Bardos latest novel Hunter Class is available from Sharpe Books