Mick Herron
Spies lie. They betray. It's what they do.
Chief of the intelligence service, Diana Taverner, doesn't appreciate threats. So, when a team involved in a double-agent operation during the height of the Troubles are threatening to expose the truth and lay bare the dark side of state security, Taverner turns this blackmail into an opportunity.
Slow horse, River Cartwright, is out in the cold waiting to be passed fit for work. To kill time, and with his grandfather - a former head spy - long dead, River investigates the secrets of his private library where a book has gone missing. Or perhaps it never existed.
Back at Slough House, the repository for failed spies, Louisa Guy is pondering her future. Shirley Dander is wondering if the new kid, Ash Khan, is as annoying as she seems. Roddy Ho wants the team to know that his tattoo is a hummingbird, and not, as Lech Wicinski claims, a platypus. Catherine Standish just wants everyone to play nice and as far as Slough House's master, Jackson Lamb is concerned, they should all be at their desks.
Because when Taverner starts plotting mischief people get hurt, and Lamb has no plans to send in the clowns. On the other hand, if the clowns ignore his instructions and fool around, any harm that befalls them is hardly his fault.
But they're his clowns. And if they don't all come home, there'll be a reckoning.
Please note, this book is published on 11th September, 2025. Orders to be shipped will be despatched after this date. Orders for in store collection will be ready for collection on this date.