Mick Herron is a novelist and short story writer whose books include the Sarah Tucker/Zoë Boehm series and the standalone novels RECONSTRUCTION, NOBODY WALKS. and THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED.
Mick is also the author of the acclaimed Slough House series, the first of which, the Steel Dagger-nominated SLOW HORSES, was hailed by the Daily Telegraph as one of “the twenty greatest spy novels of all time”. The second in the series, DEAD LIONS, won the 2013 CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger, and was picked by the Sunday Times as one of the best 25 crime novels of the past five years. The third, REAL TIGERS, was shortlisted for both the Gold and Steel Daggers, for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year, and for the 2017 Macavity Award. It won the Last Laugh Award at Crimefest 2017, for the best humorous crime novel of 2016.
SPOOK STREET – described by the Irish Times as “a modern masterpiece” – won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2017, the Last Laugh Award at Crimefest 2018, and was shortlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year. The fifth novel, LONDON RULES, was shortlisted for both the Gold and Steel Daggers and for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year. It was picked as a Book of the Year eleven times. The sixth, JOE COUNTRY, has been shortlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and longlisted for the Gold Dagger. The seventh will appear in 2021.
Three novellas set in the same world as Slough House – THE LIST, THE DROP and THE CATCH – are also available.
The Slough House series is currently being developed for TV, with Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.
Mick was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and lives in Oxford. He writes full time.
“Witty, sardonic and laugh-out-loud funny yet also thrilling and thought-provoking … Herron has often been compared with spy thriller greats John le Carré and Len Deighton but it is time he was recognised in his own right as the best thriller writer in Britain today. In a series that never lets its fans down, London Rules is the best instalment yet” – Daily Express
“His books present a secret world that seems more authentic and discomfiting than le Carré’s because it resembles the world the rest of us work in … As a master of wit, satire, insight and that very English trick of disguising heartfelt writing as detached irony before launching a surprise assault on the reader’s emotions, he is difficult to overpraise” – Telegraph
“If it were ever in doubt before, London Rules confirms Mick Herron as the greatest comic writer of spy fiction in the English language, and possibly all crime fiction … he has combined the essence of perpetual humour with a background of reality. He may make us laugh on every page, but he also makes us think” – Times
“Lamb – the most fascinating and irrtesistible thriller series hero to emerge since Jack Reacher – battles two sets of enemies … Given to boozing, smoking, farting and caustic, politically incorrect wisecracking, he is a 21st century Falstaff; but also the fat knight’s antithesis, a ruthless pragmatist, and master of office power games. In London Rules he plays a blinder, and Herron does too” – Sunday Times
“Herron is a funny writer but also a serious plotter … Where Herron’s novels most overlap with those of le Carré is in the severity of their critique of the failures of management in post-imperial, pre-Brexit Britain” – Guardian
“Herron’s comic brilliance should not overshadow the fact that his books are frequently thrilling, often thought-provoking, and sometimes moving and even inspiring” – Sunday Express
“It is, as ever, a joy to return to this world: there is a warm, wise, amused depth to Herron’s writing, which shines a stark light on the atrocities he describes. He’s also horribly funny” – Observer