"Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering" by Eldad Eilam is available on Amazon.
However, you do need low-level skills. Maybe you should discuss this with the manager who set you this task. If the socket stream you need to read is undocumented then the first thing to look for is the source code of the program that is generating it. Presumably the data stream is aimed at a program at the other end - where is the source code for that?