Clown Town

Slough House, Book 9

By: Mick Herron

Narrated by: Sean Barrett

The brand new Slough House thriller from the #1 bestseller Mick Herron

SUNDAY TIMES, THRILLER OF THE YEAR
GUARDIAN, CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR
DAILY TELEGRAPH, BOOK OF THE YEAR
TLS, BOOK OF THE YEAR
THE SPECTATOR, BOOK OF THE YEAR

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'Mick Herron is our best and most topical spy writer' Ian Rankin

'Clown Town is a masterpiece' India Knight, Sunday Times

'An authentic megastar of the genre' Sam Leith, Guardian

'No one can rival Mick Herron' The Times

'A superb thriller' The Spectator

'Masterly' Times Literary Supplement, books of the year

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Spies lie. They betray. It's what they do.

Slow horse River Cartwright is waiting to be passed fit for work. With time to kill, and with his grandfather - a legendary former spy - long dead, River investigates the secrets of the old man's library, and a mysteriously missing book.

Regent's Park's First Desk, Diana Taverner, doesn't appreciate threats. So when those involved in a covert operation during the height of the Troubles threaten to expose the ugly side of state security, Taverner turns blackmail into opportunity.

Over at Slough House, the repository for failed spies, Catherine Standish just wants everyone to play nice. But as far as Jackson Lamb is concerned, the slow horses 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.


*Mick Herron's Clown Town was a Sunday Times Number Four bestseller in hardback in the second week of September 2025©2025 Mick Herron

Critic reviews

Masterly

Clown Town is a masterpiece (India Knight)

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? (Sam Leith)

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

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

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

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 fabulous, funny book with a delicious sting in the tail

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

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

Herron again blends satire with politics and page-turning pacing

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 (Liz Nugent, author of STRANGE SALLY DIAMOND)

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 (Simon Mason, author of A VOICE IN THE NIGHT)

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 (Sarah Hilary, author of SHARP GLASS)

Decent story marred by poor production

Slow and less rich than previous Slow horses entries but still a decent story.
It would have been a better listen had the audio book been properly done.

The absence of chapters to navigate makes it very annoying to play.
Transitions are consequently easy to miss and with the characters being harder than ever to discern by voice I was often left utterly confused and had to go back to try and understand thr story. (At random, without chapter navigation).

One book too many

Disjointed plot, poor dialogue, tired jokes. I’ve listened to all the Slough House books & was really looking forward to this one, but it wasn’t even close to how good the others were. The plot was weak, the character’s actions were not consistent with the previous stories. The cliffhanger ending that suggests a further disappointment. Especially disappointing - as this was one of my favourite things - is the narration. Sean Barrett is usually amazing, but his voice was so gravelly it was hard to understand, and little effort is made to have different voices for each character.