Thursday 9 April 2015

Foxglove Summer

The latest in the... is it the Peter Grant series? The Rivers of London series? The Folly series? I'm not quite sure what it's referred to as, but it's the latest one anyway.

Two children get kidnapped, and Peter has to go up to the area to make sure the nearby magicians aren't up to anything suspicious. While up there, he gets involved (as a good copper in the area would, trying to help), and slowly uncovers that there is more going on than they expected, and that just because beasts are imaginary, that doesn't make them huge nasty brutes.

Because of the opening tip of the hat to Terry Pratchett, I got more than a little Lords and Ladies vibe from this. Most likely Ben Aaronovitch intended this, but don't think this is a homage to that. Ben has his own plans, and there's no morris dancing here.

One thing I realised while reading this, is that Ben goes for the slow boil. Not just in this, in which I noticed it, but also I remember Broken Homes taking its time as well. This did make the book feel a little rushed at the end, when everything comes to a head, and the Beverly subplot felt unnecessary. But we do get some more hints with Lesley... don't expect that plot line to get resolved here, that's not the way this series works with that arc.

Still, decent read, and where's the next one?

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