Clown Town

Chief of the intelligence service, Diana Taverner, doesn’t appreciate threats. So, when a team involved in a double-agent operation during the height of the Troubles are threatening to expose the truth and lay bare the dark side of state security, Taverner turns this blackmail into an opportunity. Slow horse, River Cartwright, is out in the cold waiting to be passed fit for work. To kill time, and with his grandfather – a former head spy – long dead, River investigates the secrets of his private library where a book has gone missing. Or perhaps it never existed. Back at Slough House, the repository for failed spies, Louisa Guy is pondering her future. Shirley Dander is wondering if the new kid, Ash Khan, is as annoying as she seems. Roddy Ho wants the team to know that his tattoo is a hummingbird, and not, as Lech Wicinski claims, a platypus.