At MI5 headquarters Regent’s Park, First Desk Claude Whelan is learning his job the hard way. Tasked with protecting the prime minister, he’s facing attack from all directions: from the showboating MP who orchestrated the Brexit vote; from the showboat’s wife, a tabloid columnist, who’s crucifying Whelan in print; and especially from his own deputy, Lady Di Taverner, who’s alert for Claude’s every stumble. Meanwhile, the country’s being rocked by an apparently random string of terror attacks, and the slow horses are about to rediscover their greatest strength – that of making a bad situation much, much worse.

Mick Herron has become one of the most critically acclaimed and popular novelists in the genre over the last decade.  He has become even more widely known (including in Italy) since  the 2022 launch of Slow Horses, the highly acclaimed, UK made, Apple TV+ funded, television adaption of his Slough House spy story saga. A recently completed new series, based on his earlier crime thriller series, Down Cemetery Road has also just landed on Apple TV+. Herron’s prolific and powerful output reflects the great legacy and traditions of British spy fiction, echoing the milieu and themes of Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and John Le Carre. However, he brings a unique and distinctive perspective to the genre, not only through his incorporation of contemporary events and politics into his subject matter but his use of black comic satire and a very English wit in the savagely funny dialogue uttered by his band of dysfunctional spy outcasts. This piece is a brief overview of Herron‘s career to date, particularly for the benefit of Italian readers, who don’t necessarily have access to all of Herron’s impressive bibliography. [Adrian Wootton]