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May 15, 2026 13 mins

He’s been described as “the John le Carré of his generation” and a “megastar of the genre”. 

British spy writer Mick Herron has earned millions of fans around the world and delighted critics with his thrilling plots, rich characters, and dry humour.  

He’s won dozens of awards for both his Slough House series, his stand alone works, and his short story collections, and ‘Slow Horses’ and ‘Down Cemetery Road’ have both been adapted to the screen. 

Herron’s on our shores for the Auckland Writers Festival, in which he’ll introduce the latest addition to his iconic series, ‘Clown Town’, set during the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. 

‘Slow Horses’ was originally released in 2010, and wasn’t particularly successful, especially when compared to the acclaim both the book, and Herron's work as a whole, now holds.  

Herron told Jack Tame things changed one day at a time, so it doesn’t feel like that big of a difference. 

“It was a low slow process, and it’s one in which, I mean, my part in it has been that every – well, most days, not every day, most days I just sit down and get on with the book that I happen to be writing.” 

“Everything else goes on around me really,” he told Tame. 

He attributes his success to his publishers, the people working in marketing, those who run festivals, and so on. 

“I just respond to invitations and very happily turn up.”  

Over four million copies of his books have sold around the world, but Herron isn’t quite sure what it is about his work that people connect with so much. 

“I don’t intend to investigate it too closely,” he said. 

“It’s a feeling that if I did, I might break something without meaning to.”  

“I just carry on doing what I’m doing and hope I’m doing it right ... I just do what I’ve always done, which is write the novel that’s inside me that I need to write.” 

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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks atb.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
He's been described, of course, as the John Lecurrey of
his generation. A megastar of the genre, British spy writer
Mickhern has earned millions of fans and delighted critics worldwide
with his thrilling plots, his rich cast of characters and
dry sense of humor, all of course wrapped up in
his brilliant slough House series. His work has won way

(00:34):
more awards than I can possibly list here. His novels
Slow Horses and Down Cemetery Road have been adapted into
Apple original series Mixed in New Zealand for his feature
event at the Auckland Writers' Festival to introduce his newest
installment in the Slow Horses series, clown Town, which focuses
on a plot in the Troubles, mcheron with us in person,

(00:56):
killed a good morning, welcome to New Zealand, and welcome
to our show.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
So the first Slow Horses came out in twenty ten
and I think didn't do especially well at the time,
but if you add a fast forward sixteen years, you
were nine books deep. You had the Apple TV adaptation
with Gary Oldman. You are traveling the world to promote
clown Town. Emma Thompson is starring in an adaptation of

(01:21):
Down Cemetery Road, your first novel from two thousand and three.
How do you make sense of what has changed?

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, it happened a day at a time, so like
most of our lives do. So it doesn't feel that
huge a difference. Now when you say it like that,
it's baffling, isn't it. But it was a long, slow process,
and it's one in which I mean my part in
it has been the most days, not every day. Most days,

(01:49):
I just sit down and got on with the book
that I happened to be writing, and everything else goes
on around me. Really, I mean, my being here is
due to the efforts of people in marketing and at
my publishers and people who run festivals and so on.
I just respond to invitations and very happily turn up,

(02:10):
And as with the TV shows, it's the same. I mean,
that's been an awful lot of work for an awful
lot of other people. But I'm just very occasionally seeing
what's going on.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
The reason those other people are so willing to put
on the work is because your work is so beloved, Though,
what do you think it is about? Are you able
to distill the magic? What is it that you think
is connected with so many people?

Speaker 3 (02:32):
I'm not entirely sure, and I don't investigate it too
closely because it's a feeling that if I did, I
might break something without meaning to. You know, the one
time I remember falling off my bicycle and hurting myself.
I broke my elbow was when I suddenly started realizing
that I was riding a bicycle and how is this happening?
And I started, you know, thinking about it, and then

(02:53):
of course I've fell off. I feel the same way
about the writing. I just carry on doing what I'm
doing and hope that I'm doing it right. But I
rely on intuition. I don't. I don't sort of analyze
what readers might expect next, or try to provide what
whatever you meet, whatever those expectations might be. I just
do what I've always done, which is right. The novel

(03:13):
that's inside me that I need to write.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Jackson Lamb must be the most disagreeable character in modern fiction.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Oh, I hope.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
So, I mean, where does he Where does he come from?
How do you write Jackson?

Speaker 3 (03:27):
It's mostly his lack of filter that makes him interesting,
I think, and that is partly due to the kind
of character that he is. I'm very strongly of the
opinion that his actions, his behavior, his words are born
essentially out of a kind of self loathing. I mean,
he's not a man who's happy in himself, and that
shows in all the life choices that he makes, you know,

(03:48):
I mean the smoking, the drinking. I'm not promoting this
as a lifestyle. I'm indicating what appy, but he takes
a great deal of pleasure in that having that lack
of filter. As I say, he says things that he
knows will wound, and he does it partly, I have
to say, out of a sense of fun. I mean,
he's brutal to people, but he's also quite clever I

(04:11):
think in the US yeah, yeah, and the words that
he chooses, and that's that reflects my own joy in
manipulating language. I mean, I love working on the page.
I always feel funny about doing interviews like this because
I mean, I'm a twelfth draft person. You know, anything
I say now straight off the top of my head

(04:32):
always feels to me very inadequate and very you know,
sort of woefully lacking in articulously really, Whereas on the page,
I can carry on working over and over until I've
got something that I think sounds right. So lamb Lamb's
one liners, which on the page seem to be spontaneous.
You know, there's stuff that I've sweated over for days
on end.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Isn't it curious that you are both someone who is
storytelling on intuition and you are also someone who is
really considered and goes back and meticulously works from draft
to draft to draft. I mean those two things can
be true at once. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
They are. They're rining out mistakes, both in terms of
the language that I use and under plotting. I would
plot more deeply before starting tried if I were able to.
But I find that for me, creativity is a dynamic process.
We're going back to bicycles again, you know, like a
dynamo on of bicycle and you turn the pedals and
the lights go on. I'm like that when I'm working,
when I'm actually writing, I can see what I need

(05:28):
to do next. I can see where the plot needs
to go. When I'm not writing and just thinking about it.
I kind of have a destination in mind, but the
getting there, the step by step bit is done at
the typeface as it well, you know, I work out
the details as I go along.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
For many people, Gary Oldman's portrayal is going to be
the is synonymous with Jackson Lamb. Do you watch the
series and then find that his performance is Jackson Lamb?
His voice then influences your writing of the character. Are
you able to distinguish between those things or.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Is it helpful?

Speaker 3 (06:02):
It's a bit of all of those things. Really, I
don't have Gary in my mind when I'm writing. I
was very lucky in that the success came at quite
a late stage. When I first saw Gary with that
coat on, with that hair, doing his thing, which was
on set rather than on screen. I was writing the
eighth book in the series, so I was well established

(06:24):
in how I approached writing the character. I don't feel
that I've changed my approach in the book, since Climtown
is the only book since then. If I have done that,
I think readers will notice it before I do I expect.
But I think Gary's doing a fantastic job. He's got
the he's got the character really nailed down, and I

(06:45):
mean it's a bit different than the Jackson that you
see on screen is not exactly the same as the
Jackson on the page, which can never be, which is
always going to be the case in any adaptation. But
I couldn't hope for a more for a better performance,
and one that is more loyal to the character as
I created him. The thing is that Gary, because of
the actor he is, needs to put in bits of

(07:07):
history that I haven't. I can just write the character.
I never tell you know where Jackson came from or
haven't you know, done very much of that so far.
Whereas Gary, when he started, he wanted to know all
these sorts of details that aren't in the books. You know,
where did he go to school and all that sort
of thing. So we chatted about that quite a lot,
and he absorbs that and puts that into his performance,

(07:28):
which that's what he needs to do, That's how he operates.
I don't need any of that, so I don't touch it.
So it means that you know his character is coming
in some ways from a slightly different direction. But I
have absolutely no worries about that at all. You know,
for the show to be successful, and it's got to
have an independent life, and I think that's what it has.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
So he wrote slow Horses in the aftermath, excuse me,
the of the Financial Question two thousand and eight.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
I was writing it about the same time I started
writing two thousand.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
And eight, and then the storyline kind of seen it
on some you know, a white nationalist cell, and I
think a lot of people felt like you were really
prescient in seeing in maybe linking that kind of environment
or moment with the rise in white nationalism. Did you
see yourself as being kind of ap prescient or as

(08:18):
foreseeing something that would maybe come to the fore in
the years that followed.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
I was clearly worried about it at the time, but
putting using that as the sort of element of villainy
in the book was as much a kind of pragmatic
decision as anything else. I wasn't thinking, oh, this is
the direction we're going in. I was seeing, these people
are out there and they are a problem. But mostly

(08:42):
it was you know, my book needs that element of danger,
and you know, it needs something to fight against, and
I just chose it, you know, chose ultra right wing
nationalism as being the force in the book that I
kind of have my characters reacting against. I could easily
chosen something else and then I wouldn't have this reputation
for press suits, as you say, And it wasn't altogether

(09:05):
greeted that warmly the time. I mean, my my then
publisher complained that the book, the politics of the book
were thrown back to the nineteen seventies. Is not how
we are anymore. You know, this is all this is
all wrong, This is all wrong, and I didn't think
it was wrong, and sadly it's turned out to be right.
I would much rather my publisher had been correct, and

(09:25):
i'd been, you know, putting up this this sort of
straw man of a villain and it all came to nothing,
And I'd rather that, you know, we hadn't undergone exit,
which is something else that I threw into the mix
back in two thousand and eight. So I take no
great joy in having accidentally foretold if you in that book.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
No, I suppose from a reader's perspective, we're just fortunate
that you know that that we have this kind of
art to help us, you know, interpret, interpret the world
and under and understand it as it is. So clowntown
opens with a missing book from rivers grandfather's library donated
to what you call the Spooks College that's right at Oxford.
So with out giving too much away, what made the

(10:08):
Troubles the right kind of sitting for plan hand?

Speaker 3 (10:12):
It came about because I think it was the first
time ever I actually went actively looking for something to
hang the book on. When you're writing a series, I
find that, you know. So this was nine books in.
I know quite a lot of what is going to
happen long before I've got a plot, because I have
these characters and I know where I want them to
I know where they are, I know what's happened to them,
I know roughly where they want to be at the end.

(10:37):
There is that, yeah, I know where I want them
to be, not necessarily where they want to be. And
what I need is something that will trigger all those,
you know, the necessary events to make what I want
to happen happen. And I had a conversation with somebody
whom I met quite by chance through and through mutual friends,
who had had a very senior position in the civil
service in the UK, and he had worked with the
heads of both m I five and m I six

(10:59):
and as a liaison with number ten Downing Street, and
I simply asked him what's the worst thing the Intelligence
Services had ever been involved in? And without missing a beat,
he said State Life, which was the code name for
an operation that was carried out in Northern Ireland during
the troubles.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
There's a whole lot more information just coming out at
the moment.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
There is there is At the time, the guy who
has been identified as being Steak Knife was still alive.
He died a few months later when I was actually
writing the book. Pure coincidence, I Hasten and I took
that as the starter for the book larger because I
was interested in the notion. I weren't going to do
any details about Steateknife because I didn't research it what
I really wanted. I don't sort of do recreations of

(11:44):
tradecraft operations. I'm not terribly interested in writing that kind
of material. What I was interested in was what it
must have been like to have been involved in an
operation like Steak Knife, where people who worked in the
Intelligence Services were protecting somebody who was a monster. I mean,
he was a torturer, murderer, rapist, terror, terrible man, but
he was informing for the intelligence services, so therefore he

(12:04):
was under the protection of the entire and services. What
I was interested in was what must it have been
like to sign up to a certain way of life,
you know, working for the service, you're there to protect
the community, and you end up protecting someone like this instead,
and to feel that it must have tainted their career.
So I have a group of people who are involved

(12:25):
in that operation. It's set in the hearing now, So
these are people later on in life essentially suffering post
traumatic stress from what their job led them to do
and leads to them seeking reparation for that. Really, and
of course, as always in my bixit orders terribly wrong.
That's a very good way putting it. Yes, the beehigh

(12:49):
gets kicked over quite early on, and they spend the
rest of the time trying to put the bees back
in the box.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Clowntown is your latest book? How far do you think
this can go make? How fower are you interested in
taking it?

Speaker 3 (13:02):
I never looked forward further than the next book. Really,
I'm writing a non series novel at the moment, and
the next book that I write, which will be starting
sometime next year, will be a slow house novel and
I do have a title for it, but I have nothing else.
I don't want to give it to usertain.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
It is such a joy to have you in New Zealand,
and thank you so much for giving us your time.
You've given just delight to so many millions of readers
around the world.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
So thank you very much, really kindry Jack, thank you
so much. I enjoyed this.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
That is Mick Hieron here is the author of Slow
Horses and the entire slough House series. It is brilliant.
Let me say this, if you have only watched the
Apple TV series, you are missing out. You have to
go and read the books as well.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news talks it'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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