ON SalE NoW
An instant New York times bestseller
![Mick Herron's CLOWN TOWN [US, 2025, SOHO CRIME]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/12eb7d_cd8dbfd865e94992a00fea924c6e52d9f001.jpg/v1/fill/w_2940,h_1654,enc_auto/file.jpeg)
praise for CLOWN TOWN
“A wickedly funny take on espionage.”
—People
“May be the best Slow Horses book to date . . . Herron’s style is as relaxed and stylish as ever, accommodating both keen one-line descriptions and more elaborate imagery. Unpredictability remains a hallmark of the series: One of the slow horses takes an irreversible action toward the end of Clown Town so unexpected it seems as shocking as a drive-by shooting.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Excellent . . . Herron’s work now has a huge following and no wonder: He’s a master at mixing byzantine plotting with breathless pacing.”
—Vogue
​
“Darkly comic.”
—The New York Times
An instant New York times bestseller
On sale now
THE first book in the critically acclaimed slough house series
London’s Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they have in common: they want back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means working together.
Available now
Slow Horses, the critically acclaimed series from Apple TV+ starring Gary Oldman in his Emmy-nominated performance as Jackson Lamb, returns Sept. 24, 2025.
​
Want to dive even deeper into the Slough House universe? Season 5 of Slow Horses is based on the novel London Rules.
praise for Mick Herron and the slough House series
“The best in a generation, by some estimations, and irrefutably the funniest.”
—The New Yorker
READ: The New Yorker profile of Mick Herron by Jill Lepore
​
“What spurs me to keep reading each new installment is Herron’s absurdist voice, which could devolve into cheap cynicism but never does. That’s why the Slough House denizens, from Jackson Lamb to Roddy Ho to newcomer Ashley Kahn, maintain pathos in the face of parody—they may be bitter, but they have pride in themselves and their work.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The best spy novelist now working.” —NPR, Fresh Air
​
“Out of a wickedly imagined version of MI5, [Herron] has spun works of diabolical plotting and high-spirited cynicism . . . Happily for Mr. Herron—if alas for us—events continue to produce rich material for his special gifts, and we hope he is scribbling away making good use of it all.” —The Wall Street Journal
​
“[Herron’s] cleverly plotted page-turners are driven by dialogue that bristles with one-liners. Much of the humor comes from Herron’s sharp eye for the way bureaucracies, whether corporate or clandestine, function and malfunction. The world of Slough House is closer to ‘The Office’ than to 007.” —The Associated Press
​
“Herron writes squeakingly well-plotted spy thrillers. More than that, he composes—at the rate of a pulpist—the kind of efficient, darkly witty, tipped-with-imagery sentences that feel purpose-built to perforate my private daze of illiteracy. More than that, he’s a world-bringer, the creator of a still-growing fictional universe with its own gravity, lingo, and surface tension.” —THE ATLANTIC
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Mick Herron is a British novelist and short story writer who was born in Newcastle and studied English at Oxford. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling Slough House espionage series, four Zoë Boehm mysteries, and several standalone novels. His work has won the CWA Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement in Crime Writing, the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, the Theakstons Novel of the Year Award, the Barry Award and the Ellery Queen Readers Award, and been nominated for the Macavity and Shamus Awards. Slow Horses and Down Cemetery Road have both been adapted into Apple Original series. Mick is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He currently lives in Oxford and writes full-time.