Fans of Mick Herron, and Slow Horses in particular, have been mightily spoiled these past few weeks. First came the arrival of Clown Town, book nine in the Slough House series, closely followed by the arrival on Apple TV+ of series five of the series based on the books. The latest episodes relate to London Rules, the fifth novel in the series featuring a hopeless bunch of failed spies, which came out in 2018.
But it’s Clown Town we’re focusing on here, and as it opens an unknown man is dying a particularly imaginative and gruesome death at the hands of perpetrators unknown. Hold that thought – it’s about to loom large as this story unfolds.
In the scruffy environs of Slough House, in central London, life is tottering along pretty much as usual. Catherine Standish is attempting to reason with Shirley Dander – an impossible task, as any fan of this series knows all too well. Meanwhile, legend in his own headspace Roddy Ho is congratulating himself at having a new tattoo done. It’s bound to draw the females to him like moths to a flame, or so he mistakenly believes, because Herron’s work is littered with such in-jokes.
As we catch up with the latest on the assembled Slow Horses, one of our favourites is missing. River Cartwright is now out of a coma after his brush with nerve-agent Novichok in Bad Actors, and is at home with Sid Baker. The pair are bonding after having both shared near-death experiences. River isn’t firing on all cylinders though, and is desperately trying to hide it in the hope of getting back in the good books of First Desk Diana Taverner and returning to The Park – when in reality he has about as much chance of redemption as Jackson Lamb having a shower and change of clothes.
That’s all put aside when River gets an email that sets alarm bells ringing, from the woman in Oxford who is curating the library of his late grandfather David Cartwright. There’s a book missing, and the internet says this particular title never existed. Curious.
Curiouser still is the fact that the aforementioned Taverner has received a threatening email to her iron-clad personal account. The anonymous message harks back to a covert operation during the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and threatens to expose the unpalatable side of state security.
Putting an unwanted spotlight on a murky period of pretty recent history could trigger a whole raft of repercussions in a country that has recently had a change of government. But this is Taverner we’re talking about – someone who has never been averse to turning a spot of blackmail into a gilt-edged opportunity. This time, though, she is playing with fire, and someone is about to get burned.
Clown Town is a story with myriad narrative threads that tangle and interweave like long-redundant computer cables in a forsaken dusty drawer. In addition to all the usual suspects, there is a cast of new characters and the occasional old face in play, and as ever with Mick Herron, some are disposable while others are here for the long haul. It never pays to get too attached to anyone in a Slow Horses book. Just saying.
The writing is sharp, clever and cinematic, and also very, very funny. The sheer enjoyment of reading this one cannot be understated, and my Kindle copy is filled with pink highlighted passages, where some witty turn of phrase or smart remark was just too good to pass by without some form of recognition.
All of the action takes place in London and Oxford, and both are rendered through a smeared lens – no touristy rose-coloured glasses at play here. Instead, the locations are portrayed in a shadowy and seedy light. It provides the perfect playground for spook machinations, and what machinations they are! This is a sinuous plot that moves along at top pace, but please take time to appreciate the dialogue as the pages flash by. It brings each character to life in three-dimensional pomp – maybe a little too lifelike in the case of the odious Lamb, whose festering presence is felt throughout; a ragged ringmaster trying to keep all his hapless clowns on the bus.
This is a book that left me speechless and desperately wanting more – two attributes that put it right at the top of my best reads of this year so far. Please don’t make us wait another three years for the next one, Mr Herron!
Catch up with the books to date with our guide to the Slough House novels.
Baskerville / Soho Crime
Print/Kindle/iBook
£14.00
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
