Clown Town

Herron again blends satire with politics and page-turning pacing

Clown Town is a masterpiece

A twisty, comic tale centred on a covert operation from the heigh of the Northern Ireland Troubles

Clown Town is an absolute belter. No one is better than Mick at loading exactly the right words and taking aim at the egos and idiocies in Westminster and further afield. More satisfying than a squirty flower in the face of your least favourite politician

Mick Herron has that rare gift of being able to write exquisitely and hilariously while keeping us on the edge of our seats. An IRA double agent and a corrupt politician are central to this story while Diana Taverner and Jackson Lamb slug it out once again. Thoroughly enjoyable, I now have a whole new bunch of insults to add to my collection

The circus is back in town and this time the slow horses are not the only clowns in the big tent . . . effectively blends plot, satire and pure, unadulterated fun. Another Mick Herron virtuoso performance

Pure class: thrilling, funny and moving. By now it's obvious that the Slough House novels are not just suspenseful, laugh-out-loud entertainments, not just literary marvels, but important too, essential stories of the state of the UK in the twenty first century

Funny, thrilling and shot through with real anger at the state of the nation

No one can rival Mick Herron . . . the series is increasingly acquiring a seriousness of heart that befits Herron's achievement

This isn't just a superb thriller about dysfunctional spooks. In these dark days, there are not many novels of any sort that make you laugh aloud. But this is one of them

Intricate plots of simmering tension, an intelligence service that hums with mundanity and mendacity, and X-rated dialogue delivering character assassination with every withering riposte. . . a series that continues to reinvigorate the spy fiction genre

Laced with Herron's mordant wit and whip-crack dialogue . . . Herron knits the threads together with his familiar verve

A fabulous, funny book with a delicious sting in the tail

Herron at his masterly best, a stylish page-turner . . . the tales of the Slow Horses have matched the muddle, shoddiness and loss of status of post-Brexit Britain

Over the last decade this series of novels about a community of cashiered spies has made the transition from "well-kept secret" to "household name". Herron is now an authentic megastar of the genre . . . It's Herron's line-by-line writing that really makes [the books] stand out. Has there been a more magnificently bossy narrative voice since Dickens? Or one more in love with the baroque flourish?

A must-read series

The satirical thriller is every bit as funny, fast-paced and outrageously irreverent as its fans have come to expect . . . A breathless ride of a novel, the jokes keep pace with the pathos as Herron shows he can handle heartbreak just as adeptly as humour

The writing is deliriously funny, imaginatively florid and magically descriptive of the nuances of London life

Another superb spy adventure

The jokes are as good as ever, the writing is glorious, the plot is deviously clever and the glimpses of real history add a layer of seriousness to the story . . . superb novel

A totemic figure in the spy fiction boom . . . His thrilling, witty, idiosyncratic novels have sold more than four million copies and have been credited with revitalising the genre

A magisterially accomplished novel and Herron a master of vivid voice, showing himself in a plot of shining, machine-like efficiency

It's no surprise that viewers (and commissioners) can't get enough of Herron's knotty, ambiguous and unabashedly clever plots and oddball characters

Masterly