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*Now an award-winning Apple TV+ series starring Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Jack Lowden*

‘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

Slough House is the outpost where disgraced spies are banished to see out the rest of their derailed careers. Known as the ‘slow horses’ these misfits have committed crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal while on duty.

In this drab and mildewed office these highly trained spies don’t run ops, they push paper. Not one of them joined the Intelligence Service to be a slow horse and the one thing they have in common is they want to be back in the action.

‘The most exciting development in spy fiction since the Cold War’ The Times

‘The most enjoyable British spy novel in years’ Mail on Sunday

‘The new spy master’ Evening Standard

Reviews

Andrew Taylor, The Spectator
If you read one spy novel this year, read Real Tigers. Better still, read the whole series
Metro
Surely among the finest British spy fiction of the past 20 years
Mail on Sunday
The most enjoyable spy novel in years
Guardian
A funny, stylish, satirical, gripping story
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Praise for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb series:
Irish Times
Mick Herron is the real deal
Bernard Cornwell, Daily Express
The first of his series about MI5 and a character called Jackson Lamb, one of the great monsters of modern fiction. He's a wonderfully cynical writer and there's a lot of dark humour in it. I'm not clever enough to write this sort of thing
Evening Standard
The new spy master
Sunday Times
Jackson Lamb - the most fascinating and irresistible thriller series hero to emerge since Jack Reacher
Daily Telegraph
As a master of wit, satire, insight . . . Herron is difficult to overpraise
Val McDermid
The John le Carré of our generation
Alex Clark, Observer
For something really gripping, head for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb series, in which a sidelined spook and his cohorts battle their way back to the centre of a life of espionage. Begin with Slow Horses and enjoy
The Times
One of the most consistently enjoyable literary achievements of the past decade
Daily Mail (Scotland)
Mick Herron's Slow Horses series has all the thrills of John Le Carre or Len Deighton with a black humour
Daily Telegraph
With his poet's eye for detail, his comic timing and relish for violence, Herron fills a gap that has been yawning ever since Len Deighton retired
Mail on Sunday
The finest new crime series this Millennium
Daily Express
The best modern British spy series
Christopher Brookmyre, Herald
I was delighted to discover that this is merely the first in a captivating series
Nick Cohen, Big Issue
I was delighted to discover Mick Herron's riotous Slow Horses series about the black sheep of MI5