Spook Street cover art

Spook Street

The bestselling thrillers that inspired the hit Apple TV+ show Slow Horses (Slough House Thriller 4)

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Spook Street

By: Mick Herron
Narrated by: Sean Barrett
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

*Now an award-winning Apple TV+ series starring Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Jack Lowden*

'A terrific spy novel' Ian Rankin

'A modern masterpiece' Irish Times

****

Twenty years retired from the Intelligence Service, David Cartwright still knows where all the bones are buried. But when he forgets that secrets are supposed to stay hidden, there's suddenly a target on his back.

The 'Old Bastard' raised his grandson to be a hero, not a slow horse. Now, far from joining the myths and legends of Spook Street, River Cartwright is part of Jackson Lamb's team of pen-pushing no-hopers at Slough House. Which doesn't mean he won't ditch everything and go rogue when his grandfather comes under threat.

Lamb worked with Cartwright back in the day, and knows better than most that this is no innocent old man. So when a panic button raises the alarm at Intelligence Service HQ, it's Lamb who's called on to identify the body. And it's Lamb who'll do whatever's necessary to protect an agent in peril.

'Outstanding' Daily Telegraph
Crime Thrillers Espionage Political Spies & Politics Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Mystery Thriller Detective Crime Exciting Witty

Listeners also enjoyed...

A Long Time Dead cover art
Delicate Indecencies cover art
Grimm Up North cover art
Starter Villain cover art
Columbus Day cover art
The Very First Damned Thing cover art
A Killing in November cover art
Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection cover art
Will Save the Galaxy for Food cover art
Differently Morphous cover art
What Falls Between the Cracks cover art
Off to Be the Wizard cover art
The Supervillainy Saga, Volume One cover art
Blood Falls cover art
Divorcing Jack cover art
Cold Monday cover art

Critic reviews

A terrific spy novel: sublime dialogue, frictionless plotting
Immensely satisfying and utterly brilliant
Mick Herron is an incredible writer and if you haven't read him yet, you NEED to. I read the Jackson Lamb books one after the other and am already desperate for the next one. They are smart, darkly comic and hugely addictive
A captivating series where the intelligence services' misfits and screw-ups become the useful tools of Herron's quite magnificent creation, Jackson Lamb
I love Mick Herron's books more than is decent. Hands down my favourite crime series of the decade . . . Spook Street is a superb novel - fast-paced, original, witty and completely satisfying on every level. I just can't get enough of this brilliant series
In Spook Street Mick Herron returns to the wonderful fallen spies of MI5 in a series that is fast becoming a classic
The dialogue crackles. Herron is a master of timing, word by word, sentence by sentence. His language creates its own world, with streaks of satire and loss that prevent it from becoming too comfortable. Give yourself a treat and hurry on down to Spook Street
It's all sheer fun. Herron is spy fiction's great humorist, mixing absurd situations with sparklingly funny dialogue and elegant, witty prose
Slough House provides the hub for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb spy novels, of which Spook Street is the fourth, a series that is by some distance the most impressive new body of work in spy fiction
Mick Herron's outstanding series is extremely funny
It's not often a reviewer can say, "You've never read anything quite like this" but it's a safe encomium to use in the case of Mick Herron. The author's idiosyncratic writing is unique in his genre: the spycraft of le Carré refracted through the blackly comic vision of Joseph Heller's Catch-22
Herron's series of novels about a group of deadbeat spies - or 'slow horses', in spook parlance - has been hailed as the most exciting thing to hit the genre since George Smiley hung up his mackintosh
Spook Street is written with a wry, sardonic wit that will make you laugh out loud as you are taken on a gripping thrill ride
The new spy master
Mick Herron's Spook Street began with an atrocity targeted at teenagers, which seemed horribly prescient come the Manchester Arena attack in May. But it's these discomfiting dips into the real world that give Herron's entertaining series about incompetent MI5 rejects its depth
The long and enduring power of Le Carré leaves British espionage fiction a cramped space for newcomers. Mick Herron has carved out his own distinctive territory . . . Chief cowboy of the slow horses, Jackson Lamb, whose vulgar hedonism would be enough to make Falstaff look like Philip Hammond, is becoming one of crime fiction's great characters
All stars
Most relevant
Characters, plot, prose, all excellent. Sean Barrett does his usual outstanding job. Like the rest of this series, a real treat. One sly phrase at least made me laugh aloud. I do hope there will be more of the series.

A joy to listen to

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Watched the TV series? This is as good and at times better. The writing is sublime, clever and demonstrates a lively wit that suggests an author of some brilliance. Yes, the plot is vaguely implausible, but it is carried with brio that makes listening imperative.

It is just brilliant writing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Fascinating cross between le Carre and Christopher Fowler. Where do you hide all your burnt out spooks? Slough House of course. And look how useful they can be despite themselves.

Fascinating skewift view of the spying game.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

As always a fabulous story with great twists and well performing characters, you will feel safe with the slow horses out there

Jackson

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Flawless naration of a fast paced story with dialogue from Lamb that had me laughing out loud.

Another great installment

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews