Craftsman of spy tales and secrets

Mick Herron in conversation with Daniel Hahn

Marquee at Phyllis Court

Wednesday, October 8

DANIEL Hahn began his interview with Mick Herron by saying he wanted to talk about the latest book, Clown Town, a Sunday Times bestseller, but had a difficulty because he didn’t want to give the plot away to those members of the audience who hadn’t read it yet. Daniel succeeded admirably in drawing out the author’s writing methods and motivation without revealing the ending.

We were only told about the book’s opening with a tantalising introduction to a character loosely based on the infamous Irish Republican terrorist “Steakknife”, who was not only a violent criminal but also gave valuable information to the British intelligence services. This created serious moral dilemmas for his handlers, including one of Slough House’s popular characters, River Cartwright.

Mick Herron explained that he had been writing since 2008 and was first published in 2010. His Slough House series, featuring Jackson Lamb, has now been adapted into the television series Slow Horses for Apple TV+. He won the Crime Writers’ Association 2013 Gold Dagger for the book Dead Lions and the Diamond Dagger in 2025 for his lifetime achievement.

Mick said that the television success had not affected his writing because he had initially written without any acknowledgement for so long. From a young age, he was influenced by Enid Blyton and then Agatha Christie to write a narrative for the enjoyment of himself and the public. The art was to write a sentence and then the craft was to rewrite it so that it became perfect.

When asked how he constructed his plots, Mick admitted that he always had the end in mind, as if the story ran from A to Z, but that his style was to enter his characters’ minds, writing out their dialogue, thoughts and emotions. This often took him into unexpected directions and meanderings along the way, before returning to the conclusion of the plot, where he attempted to tie up some, but not all, loose ends.

This process seems to really engage the readers in the story, judging by the enthusiasm of the audience when asking questions. When asked why the film version differed slightly from his books, he explained that he wrote with the words on the page in his mind, never seeking visual images. In contrast, the film script required that the scenes act out what is in the minds of the principal characters so the viewer can understand better, requiring adaptations. The wonderful casting of Gary Oldman as the notoriously behaved Jackson Lamb was an example where the film script writers rewrote scenes so that Oldman had more screen time.

When pressed, Mick explained that the Slough House series would eventually come to an end, but that he had more books in mind to write before this occurred, to the obvious delight of the audience.

Terry Grourk