In Mick Herron’s latest novel, “Clown Town,” two veteran spies, Jackson Lamb and Diana Taverner, share a London bench. These notorious MI5 fixtures will be familiar to fans of “Slow Horses,” the Apple TV+ series adapted from Herron’s novels, where they are portrayed with callused gravitas by Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas.
While the acclaimed actors are a major draw for the show, the weary, cynical Britain they inhabit—a nation clinging to the remnants of its imperial past—is crafted directly from Herron’s witty, intricate prose. The recurring bench meetings are more than simple set pieces; they carry significant literary and sociological weight, providing a stage for the characters’ complex relationship and the novel’s themes.
Herron’s writing is saturated with a biting sarcasm, where nearly every word carries a judgment against the world, revealing the author as a sharp-eyed moralist. Though spies, bureaucrats, and politicians are frequent targets of his comic disdain, his true satire is aimed at the administrative absurdity of modern organizational life. The author, often compared to John le Carré, admits to having no firsthand espionage experience, but his time in office environments has given him a deep understanding of their inherent cruelty and banality.
At its core, “Slow Horses” is a workplace comedy, with Diana and Jackson as its flawed, indispensable anti-heroes. Their nastiness toward each other and the world is both a reflection of their circumstances and a protest against the ethically bankrupt system they serve. The sharp-eyed Diana manages up, contending with the ineptitude of the British establishment from her precarious perch. Meanwhile, the slovenly Jackson, a career reprobate exiled to a marginal post, manages down, wrangling MI5’s disgraced agents—the “Slow Horses” who must be protected from external threats, internal treachery, and their own dubious instincts.
Beneath their cynical, self-serving exteriors, what truly unites Jackson and Diana is a commitment to doing the job right. They may be the last people in London who believe in decency and honor, embodying the humanist sentiment that lies just below the satirical surface of Herron’s novels. It is a truth they would never admit, especially not to each other while sitting on a public bench where anyone could be listening.
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