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Spook Street centres around David Cartwright, a spook (spy) emeritus who is now losing his memory, burdening his grandson River. River joined the Mi5 British intelligence service, following in grandpa’s footsteps, but became a laughing stock now resigned to a subunit in Slough House with the other “Slow Horse” agents with metaphorical egg on their faces.

But there are other spooks, too. We meet a new Slow Horse named Coe, who has been so traumatized that he can’t stand human contact and can only listen to music and play air piano, becoming a ghost of his strategic self. River himself thinks of Coe, his new office mate, as a dead man walking, but can’t be bothered to help him. Marcus, one of my favourite Slow Horses, while not itching for a fight or showing his office mate Shirley what waterboarding feels like, is losing the battle against his gambling addiction. Marcus points out that, thanks to insurance, he’s worth more dead than alive.

So at least three, arguably four, of these men are spooks emotionally as well as spooks as in slang for spies, and that’s only the beginning of the theme expertly woven throughout the novel.

As David Cartwright’s mind unravels, River ends up exploring his own past. How did River end up living with his grandparents? Why won’t his mother spend time with him? If you ever wondered, this is the book for you.

That said, it wasn’t my favourite book of the series, because memory loss is not a “reader cookie” for me. A reader cookie means as soon as you read that element, you want more. Memory loss is more like reader kidney beans for me. Fine, I’ll eat them, they’re good for me, but I’m not going to actively seek them out, even though Mick Herron is such a skilled writer.

Spook Street reminded me of the time author Kristine Kathryn Rusch told me that when former U.S. president Ronald Reagan died, his widow, Nancy, was heartbroken at his gravesite. Kris said something like, “Reagan had dementia and had lost his memory, but to her, he only died the day they buried his body. Where was he in between?”

I could see that this was a key question for Kris and one she would explore in her writing. For me, I could ask the question, and I could read other people’s answers, but it’s not a driving force for me. For this book, I didn’t enjoy reading (listening to) the grandpa David Cartwright passages, even though I knew I’d miss clues through my own inattention.

Also, River is just an okay character to me, and he takes up a good chunk of the real estate in this book. River’s not funny like Roderick Ho, he’s not tragic and noble like Catherine Standish, he’s not even deliberately grotesque to cover up his cunning, like Jackson Lamb. I figured out eventually that he’s supposed to be a young, impetuous, dense but possibly dashing James Bond/Jason Bourne type with a great institutional memory, but not for me.

Fair warning, the beginning is brutal, about a flash mob gone wrong, and I am in denial about the ending.

Spook Street is a worthwhile read, not for the faint of heart.