This is not a review of the new Mick Herron Slow Horses novel
Or, maybe a little
Clown Town, the latest instalment in the Mick Herron series of spy novels featuring a down-at-heels team of cast-off British intelligence agents is now in print. It is something like the 13th novel in the “Slow Horses” series, which dates back to 2011, although the count is complicated by some novellas that provide intriguing back stories.
No matter.
The familiar cast is reassembled, led by the flatulent and disturbingly gross chief, Jackson Lamb. His ability to put back whisky (though not the high-faluting single malt sort) would rival that of Winston Churchill. He has a trick he does with cigarettes; when he is not sleeping at his desk he can unspool someone else’s plotting in an instant. His nemesis is not the Russians or the Chinese, but the head of British intelligence, “first desk” Diana Taverner (or “Lady Di”). Rarely has so Machiavellian a character walked the stage since MacBeth; rarer still in spy novels. Peter Judd, a low-life who represents all that is worst in British politics, spins his own ops.
The “slow horses,” a sorry assortment of British agents relegated to a non-operational role as computer desk jockeys working their way through meaningless data searches are forced into action. River Cartwright is at the forefront with Jackson Lamb working his strings; Roddy Ho, a genius with computers but nothing else, especially not a tire lug wrench, screws up.
Clown car stuff ensues, as does murder and mayhem.
I won’t give away the plot. Just salute Herron for another terrific instalment that keeps on giving.
But I sense that something is going on with the 13th novel, unlucky or otherwise. Its moving into Le Carre territory, opening up what is always at the heart of the best spy novels—ethical dilemmas. Sid Baker, she who took a bullet to the head in a previous novel, has returned. Her new role is as an interrogator and confessor of the possible sins of River Cartwright, her lover. River himself is not quite right, having survived an episode of Novichok poisoning (shades of the GRU assassination attempt in Salisbury against Russian intelligence defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter). [1] Not quite right in the head; not quite sure of his mission. And then there is Catherine Standish, who has been allowed by Heron to develop as something more than a foil for Jackson Lamb. She is closing with her shambolic boss, working on his soul (god help her).
Perhaps Mick Herron is growing tired of being described as the successor to John Le Carre. Perhaps he wants to try it on.
Go for it, I say. Who cares whether Jackson Lamb manages, as he vows, to destroy Diana Taverner. Sure, watch out for that unresolved tidbit from the conclusion to Clown Town. Big suspense. But watch out for something more when novel # 14 rolls around, as I am sure it will.
In the meantime, of course, there is the next session of the British TV adaptation of Slow Horses right around the corner. It debuts on Apple TV on September 24
[1] There is a terrific documentary about the Skripal assassination attempt and its aftermath in Salisbury, England, “The Salisbury Poisonings,” 2020 (Apple TV again)
Herron, two r,s. River, not rover.