Booklog 10/2019 - Ben Aaronovitch: Lies Sleeping - Rivers of London #7

[jacey]

Review copy from the USian publisher, DAW.
The seventh Rivers of London novel continues London's Finest's search for Martin Chorley, the second Faceless Man, wanted for multiple counts of murder, fraud and magical crimes against humanity, along with good cop-turned-bad, Lesley May. Peter Grant, Detective Constable and apprentice wizard, works for The Folly, the police department the Met doesn't admit to. They police all the magical bollox and try and keep it out of sight of the general public.

Chorley is reaching the final stages of a long term plan and only the Folly's small force, led by registered Wizard, Nightingale, stands between magical mayhem and the city.

There are a lot of favourite characters in this and, indeed, it seem like too many characters at times unless you got to know them gradually through the previous books (though you need not necessarily have read the graphic novels). There are humans, magical and mundane, as well as the fae and, of course, not forgetting the river gods and goddesses (one of which is Peter's girlfriend.) This is most definitely not a gateway book into the series. You really need to start reading from the beginning. Peter Grant's 'voice' is what lifts the whole series above the mundane-slightly snarky and self-deprecating at the same time. Peter is someone worth spending time with.

Is this the final Peter Grant book? Well, certainly one aspect of the story is tied up, but another is potentially a loose thread. There's a rivers of London novella due out in April, but it's set in Germany and seems to have a new lead in Tobias Winter, so we need to wait and see,

Incidentally for British readers, the first book in the series is simply 'Rivers of London' while in the USA, the same book is called 'Midnight Riot.'