I’ve now read more Mick Herron than Charles Dickens. I’m unsure what that says about Mick Herron or me, but it’s a fact.

I read this to prepare myself for the new season of Slow Horses.* I like reading the novel beforehand because I’m curious to see what they change for the adaptation.** The Mick Herron novels aren’t short on action—the climax of the third novel is a testament to that—but they’re also prone to running on the spot where not much happens. Spook Street is a case in point. After the prologue—a terrorist attack at a shopping centre—not that much happens. Yes, someone tries to kill River’s Grandfather, and for a moment, we’re led to believe that River is dead, but for the first third of the novel, the characters wander around waiting for the plot to drop on them unannounced. Lamb doesn’t even appear for the first 50 pages of a 300-page novel, and you know the TV series won’t keep him off-screen for that long.***

Also, if I go by the trailer, the series will give more airtime to the “Big Bad” ****, who only pops up in the last thirty pages of the novel. And fair enough. Herron keeps him off-page to hide one of the novel’s big reveals. The series doesn’t need to do this.

Is Spook Street a good book? It’s OK. There’s a tad less exposition when compared to the other novels in the series. The plot is bobbins—it makes sense if you squint (again, curious to see what the show does with this).***** That every world-changing event seems to revolve around Slough House now feels like a deliberate gag rather than a nonsensical coincidence, but I might be being a little too generous here.

I sound down on the novel, but Mick Herron’s clumsy prose aside, I did enjoy it. I’ll even read the next one.

*Which I’ll be reviewing separately.

**Plenty, as it happens, for Series 4. But more on that later.

***They do not.

****Played by Agent Smith! (One of my favourite Aussie actors).

*****Still a bit silly, but they smooth out some of the sillier bits.