Mick Gerron has been called the “John Le Carré of our time” and the new hope of British literature, and has been compared to Raymond Chandler and Kingsley Amis, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, Elmore Leonard and Joseph Heller. Gerron’s novels are “a funny, borderline farcical, amazingly cynical caricature of politicians, functionaries, internecine squabbling and the Great Game” (Booklist), and the “lame horses,” aka the weaklings from the Slough Tower, are counterintelligence officers who have screwed up, punished “ for addiction to drugs, alcohol or debauchery; for intrigue and betrayal; for dissatisfaction and doubts; and also for an unforgivable oversight." Overseeing them is Jackson Lamb, “the Falstaff of our day” (Sunday Times) and “one of the most monstrous characters in modern literature” (Bernard Cornwell). But, as you know, there are no former “Kontorskie”, and every weakling, doing meaningless paperwork, dreams of justifying himself and returning to operational work in Regent’s Park. And when terrorists kidnap a teenager and threaten to cut off his head live on YouTube, the weaklings are not going to sit idly by... Based on the first books of the Slough Tower series, a television series was put into production (two seasons at once), filming took place in 2020–2021 gg. The role of Jackson Lam was played by Gary Oldman; the series also starred Jack Lowden, Olivia Cooke, Jonathan Pryce, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Christopher Cheung. The first season was directed by James Hawes (“Merlin”, “Black Mirror”, “Doctor Who”, “The Alienist”, “Raised by Wolves”).