Clown Town

Praise for Clown Town

A New York Times Bestseller
An American Bookseller Association Indie Bestseller
Vogue’s Best Books of the Year
NPR’s Books We Love
ELLE’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers of the Year
The Guardian’s Best Crime Books and Thrillers of 2025
#2 on People Magazine’s Must-Read Books of Fall
An ABA Indie Next Selection
A Barnes & Noble Best Mystery & Thriller Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book Fiction Book of the Year

“A wickedly funny take on espionage.”
—People

“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

“May be the best Slow Horses book to date . . . Mr. 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.”
—Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal

“Clown Town showcases the series’ best qualties . . . It’s a quirk and a gift that the author can tell such somber, unsettling stories so sprightly.”
—The Washington Post

“Clown Town sparkles with the razor-sharp humor, complicated characters and drum-tight narrative that have marked the other books in the series . . . Funny, relevant and absolutely delightful.”
—NPR

“Laced with Herron’s mordant wit and whip-crack dialogue.”
—Financial Times

“Every bit as funny, exciting and surprisingly poignant as the TV show.”
—Minnesota Star Tribune

“Quirky and suspenseful with a touch of humor.”
—Barnes & Noble

“Clown Town is a magisterially accomplished novel and Herron a master of vivid voice, showing himself in a plot of shining, machine-like efficiency.”
—The Spectator Australia, Books of the Year

“As well as containing most of the best jokes of this year’s crime fiction, Herron’s book boasts the best action set-piece.”
—The Telegraph, Best Books of the Year

“Britain’s best living spy writer, Mick Herron has done it again . . . This may be the funniest dialogue Herron has ever written for Jackson Lamb . . . A rollercoaster ride, lethally compelling, culminating in wonderful plot and counterplot.”
—Spybrary

“Overflowing with gritty action and mordant humor, this is as good as espionage novels get.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“Since he first introduced the misfit spies of Slough House in 2008’s Slow Horses, Herron has been compared to the likes of Graham Greene, Len Deighton, and John le Carré. But Herron’s stories are entirely unique, and his writing style is unlike anyone else’s, with a deliciously satirical edge . . . If there are any spy-fiction fans who haven’t yet read Herron’s books, now’s a good time to rectify that.”
—Booklist

“[The] payoff is spectacular.”
—BookPage

“A terrific entry in a modern-day spy series that never disappoints.”
—Bookreporter.com

Praise for the Slough House Series

“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

“Intricate plotting, full of twists . . . Herron can certainly write a real spy story, with all the misdirection and sleight of hand that requires. But it’s the surly Slough House mood, the eccentric characters, and Herron’s very black, very dry sense of humor that made me read one after the other without a break.”
—Slate.com

“I’ll tell you what, to have been lucky enough to play Smiley in one’s career; and now go and play Jackson Lamb in Mick Herron’s novels—the heir, in a way, to le Carré—is a terrific thing.”
—Gary Oldman

“Confirms Mick Herron as the best spy novelist now working.”
—NPR’s Fresh Air

“Compulsively readable, tightly plotted.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Out of a wickedly imagined version of MI5, [Herron] has spun works of diabolical plotting and high-spirited cynicism, their pages filled with sardonic wit . . . 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

“Heroic struggles, less-heroic failures and a shoot-out-cum-heist . . . with no let-up in the page turning throughout.”
—Esquire

“The best in a generation, by some estimations, and irrefutably the funniest.”
—The New Yorker

“Herron’s strength is in examining at close hand the absurdities, conflicts, and dangers of the intelligence agency as an institution at the center of some of the most central conflicts in the 21st century.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books