★ 11/23/2015
The disgraced spies at MI5’s Slough House must try to save one of their own in CWA Gold Dagger Award–winner Herron’s outstanding third thriller featuring uncouth Jackson Lamb and crew (after 2013’s Dead Lions). When one of these “slow horses,” Catherine Standish, doesn’t show up for work, her colleagues don’t initially worry until they’re contacted by kidnappers who say that they’ll only guarantee Standish’s return in exchange for information stored on a secret government computer, which happens to be in MI5’s headquarters in London’s Regent’s Park. River Cartwright, the hero of 2010’s Slow Horses, tries to infiltrate the main office, not an easy task, especially since the agency ripples with internal strife as the new home secretary, Peter Judd, butts heads with the Intelligence Service chief, Dame Ingrid Tearney. Soon the lines between spies, slow horses, and private mercenaries blur dangerously. Herron expertly juggles multiple plot lines and fully formed characters, injecting everything with a jolt of black humor. Agent: Juliet Burton, Juliet Burton Literary Agency (U.K.) (Jan.)

Praise for Real Tigers

A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year
A Telegraph Best Crime Novel of the Year
Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel
Shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for Best Thriller

“[Herron's] cleverly plotted page-turners are driven by dialogue that bristles with one-liners. Much of the humor comes from Herron’s sharp eye for the way bureaucracies, whether corporate or clandestine, function and malfunction. The world of Slough House is closer to The Office than to 007.”
—The Associated Press

"A pulsating spy thriller about a kidnapped fallen spy whose colleagues uncover a plot threatening the future of the security service."
—The Daily Express (UK)

"[Herron is the] le Carré of the future . . . The characters are brilliant."
—Patrick Neale on BBC's The Oxford Book Club

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

"If you read one spy novel this year, read Real Tigers. Better still, read the whole series."
—The Spectator

"[Reads] like an episode of Spooks written by Ricky Gervais . . . 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."
—The Daily Telegraph, ★★★★★

"Masterful . . . Deliciously tongue-in-cheek and with a strikingly serpentine construction, it is a thriller that moves Herron close to the class of Graham Greene."
—The Daily Mail

"All the action you might want from an espionage thriller is to be found in Real Tigers, with betrayal, double-dealing and a fantastically violent climax in an underground facility, but the true pleasures of Mick Herron’s Gold Dagger-winning Slough House series lie elsewhere: in the sharp wit and dry irony and elegant grace of the prose, the razor-sharp characterisation . . . Think Le Carré with fewer posh people and laugh-out-loud funny. Mick Herron is the real deal."
—Irish Times

"[The Slough House series is] among the finest British spy fiction of the past 20 years . . . Real Tigers sees them dragged center stage when the kidnap of Lamb's assistant sets into motion a narrative of breathtaking ingenuity. Brilliant."
—London Metro

"Satire, verbal sparring and gunfights are deftly combined in a excellently written novel permeated by Herron's sly, dry and very English sense of humour—rather as if Philip Larkin or Alan Bennett had had a go at spy fiction."
—The Sunday Times (London)

"Brilliantly twisty . . . Fun and thrilling in equal measure, Real Tigers is an absolute joy."
—The Mail on Sunday

"Deviously clever."
—StopYou'reKillingMe.com

"Herron's is the next big name in crime fiction."
—The Literary Review

"The labyrinthine plot takes off like a NASA rocket . . . What makes this work is top-notch writing and characterization. Thanks to crisp, clever dialogue, the reader is quickly drawn into the odd camaraderie of the Slough House team and their specific quirks."
—Mystery Scene

"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

"It is impossible not to be impressed by Herron’s use of language . . . A thoroughly entertaining tale."
—CrimeReview.com

"Misdirection abounds as the Slow Horses work to save their fellow agent and thwart a devious government conspiracy . . . I certainly enjoyed all the little surprising plot twists along the way to the wickedly delightful conclusion."
—FreshFiction

"A wondrous thing . . . Slough House is a marvelous invention."
—Reviewing The Evidence

"To say this is a great read is an understatement. This book is not your usual thriller ‘good vs. bad.’ It’s much more like always looking for someone to blame as the action and humor continue to skyrocket. " 
—Suspense Magazine

"The disgraced spies at MI5’s Slough House must try to save one of their own in CWA Gold Dagger Award–winner Herron’s outstanding third thriller . . . Herron expertly juggles multiple plot lines and fully formed characters, injecting everything with a jolt of black humor."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"[A] tour de force, in which virtually every single player—good guys, bad guys, all the turncoats and in-betweeners—is somehow connected to British Intelligence."
—Kirkus Reviews

"At heart, there is solid seriousness here as the new Home Secretary unleashes a tiger team (in which your own side tests you to the limit) to expose the weaknesses of British intelligence . . . Readers love this series for its breezy treatment of espionage in which you get to cheer for the underdogs while also showing respect for their opponents. Characters are drawn with the sharpest possible pen."
—Library Journal

Praise for Dead Lions

Winner of the 2013 CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year
A BBC Front Row Best Crime Novel of the Year
A Times Crime and Thriller Book of the Year
A Sunday Times Top 50 Crime and Thriller Book of the Past 5 Years

"Delightful . . . with a dry humor reminiscent of Greene and Waugh."
—The Sunday Times

"A great romp."
—Jeff Park, BBC Front Row

"Clever and funny."
—The Times

“Unbeatable entertainment for thriller fans.”
—Library Journal, Starred Review

"Funny, clever . . . Genuinely thrilling. The novel is equally noteworthy for its often lyrical prose."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Praise for Mick Herron

“The sharpest spy fiction since John le Carré.”
—NPR's Fresh Air

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

12/01/2015
As fans will know, Slough House is the back-of-beyond home of British spies who are drunks, addicts, failures, and misfits. This series recounts the tales of their redemption. Perhaps unusual among crime writers (though Donald Westlake comes to mind), Herron couches his intensely complicated plot in pillows of humor that hit the full range from bodily functions to double entendres. At heart, there is solid seriousness here as the new Home Secretary unleashes a tiger team (in which your own side tests you to the limit) to expose the weaknesses of British intelligence. The team kidnaps one of the Slough deadbeats and the others are tricked into a rescue operation. VERDICT Readers love this series for its breezy treatment of espionage in which you get to cheer for the underdogs while also showing respect for their opponents. Characters are drawn with the sharpest possible pen and, like them or not, they are compelling whether alone or in groups. Herron already earned a 2013 CWA Gold Dagger Award for the previous title Dead Lions and was short listed for the 2015 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for Nobody Walks.—Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA

2016-01-10
The abduction of one of their own rouses the members of MI5's dead-end Slough House (Dead Lions 2013, etc.) to action once more. As she's the first to tell everyone, recovering alcoholic Catherine Standish has never been "a joe," a field agent. She's just the assistant to Jackson Lamb, who lords it over Slough House as if it weren't the penultimate stop on the path from success in the Security Service to disgrace and oblivion. But that doesn't stop her ex-lover Sean Donovan from scooping her up in a van, locking her in a room an hour outside London, and demanding for her return a copy of a most sensitive intelligence file. Naturally, River Cartwright, the colleague Catherine designates as the one she'd be most likely to trust with her life, makes a hash of his attempt to meet the ransom demand and ends up in a little room of his own being worked over by Nick Duffy of the Dogs, the service's internal police. That's no slur against him, though, because the savviest agent in the world (something River's never come close to being on his best day) would never have suspected the truth about the rabbit hole Catherine's tumbled down. Her kidnapping, it's gradually revealed, is both more and less than it seems—less, because her abductors couldn't be more considerate, except for the one who quickly gets killed; more, because the service itself is so torn between narcissistic careerists and warring factions battling for control that its fate, and presumably that of her majesty's government, seems to hang in the balance. Even readers who don't care for the endless bureaucratic infighting will have to admire this tour de force, in which virtually every single player—good guys, bad guys, all the turncoats and in-betweeners—is somehow connected to British Intelligence.