Mick Herron's ninth Slough House novel, Clown Town, delivers a perfect mix of one-liners, plot twists, and real-world-tinged intrigue. The story opens with a gruesome scene: a victim held down while the front wheel of a Land Rover Defender is driven over their head. This sets the tone for a tale that draws on the Stakeknife scandal, where MI5 protected a murderous IRA enforcer known as Pitchfork, whose signature killing technique involved running over people's heads.
The plot thickens as River Cartwright, Herron's hero, discovers that his late grandfather's archive contains crucial material about Pitchfork. Meanwhile, Diana Taverner, the Service's First Desk, launches another fiendish scheme, soon sparring with the Slow Horses' ringmaster, Jackson Lamb. The series has become a household name, boosted by the Apple TV+ adaptation, but the books remain the main event thanks to Herron's magnificent narrative voice.
Herron's writing is a strange and addictive hybrid: classic spy story bones with a sitcom surface fizz. The back-and-forth of witty insults, off-colour jokes, and character work keeps the pages turning. River is recovering from a nerve agent, Sid from a gunshot wound, and Shirley Dander is still pushing people around. Clown Town is a must-read for fans of the series and newcomers alike.
