Mick Herron and Lucy Atkins

What keeps readers reading? What makes some novels impossible to put down? Spy novelist Mick Herron and suspense novelist Lucy Atkins discuss the ins and outs of hooking readers and creating complex, character-driven thrillers.

Herron has just published his sixth Jackson Lamb spy thriller, Joe Country. The first, Slow Horses, was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award and picked by the Daily Telegraph as one of the best 20 spy novels of all time. The Slow Horses of the title is a department of MI5 rejects who have made gross errors of judgement in the past or who have powerful enemies.

Atkins is a book critic for The Sunday Times and author of four novels, Magpie Lane, The Night Visitor, The Other Child and The Missing One. Her latest, Magpie Lane, has been described as ‘first-class Oxford intrigue’.

Novels by both writers have recently been optioned for television.