Mick Herron

Bestselling spy novelist Mick Herron returns with Joe Country, the sixth of his acclaimed Jackson Lamb novels:

Memories are stirring in Slough House, the London outpost for disgraced MI5 spies. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career – even if he tears his life apart in the process. Meanwhile, in Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner’s tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she’s going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil…

With winter taking its grip, Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.

Mick’s Jackson Lamb novels started with the bestselling Slow Horses, and was soon picked as one of the best twenty spy novels of all time by the Daily Telegraph. The following novels have gone from strength to strength, and have won a multitude of awards. He’s a firm favourite amongst literary afficionados, and it is little wonder that Ian Rankin singles out the ‘sublime dialogue [and] frictionless plotting’. This is an opportunity to engage with a true master of the genre.