Peter Grant is back and he, Leslie and Nightingale are
faced with the ongoing dilemma of wizards with dubious ethics wandering around
London doing very very unpleasant things. It’s be useful to be able to focus on
them – but, of course, other things arise.
Including a murder – a murder which Stephanopoulos and
Seawall, doughty members of the murder squad that they are, believe involves
funny magic stuff. Not that they ever use the m-word, nor do they expect it to
be used around them; they just know it makes their lives much much more
complicated. And to make matters worse and even more complicated, the victim is
an American, and the son of a state senator at that.
It’s a case that takes them into the warrens of London’s
underground –it’s sewers and it’s railways and it’s many many many many tunnels
that go on for miles and have been centuries in the building. It’s a maze down
there – and it’s beyond amazing what can actually hide down there, unseen, for
so very long as they try to find the cause of the man’s death – and the many
surprises awaiting them underground.
It’s another review of fulsome praise, I have to say. In
some ways it’s easier to write a review with lots of dubious errors, pacing
issues or diversity fails because at least you have something concrete to say.
When a book is just awesome you’re presented with the difficulty of finding a
sufficient diversity of superlative adjectives to try and fill a full review.
The book has an incredible feel of place. You can feel
London in its pages, the attitudes, the people, the places, the procedures;
this is London through and through. The
richness and authenticity of not just the places, but also the history really
shows through the book and makes everything so much more real. Despite the
fantastic elements, it feels more fact than fiction because there is so much
realness there. And not just in the places and not even just in the people, but
also in the police procedures, the different jurisdictions, the way different
things are handled, the way they were handled – and not just the way they’re
officially handled, but also the daily practicalities of daily life.
The book is also funny with constant little
side-references, tangents and wry observations about life, the city and
everything linked with a cynical acknowledgement of how things are with an amusing
twits that makes me repeatedly smile and laugh out loud. I’m not sure how much
of it travels outside of a British context and British understanding, but to me
it was perfect – amusing, injected lightness and fun and added yet further to
the strong British feel of the book.
The pacing is excellent despite the evocative
descriptions. It’s wordy and full of tangents and side-tracks, Peter is
notorious for them, but all of them are relevant, provide useful exposition,
fit naturally and, for the most part, are extremely amusing as well. It never
felt slow or bogged down. It had moments of excitement, a lot of intriguing
scenes, a lot of powerful scenes and, again, it was repeatedly and reliably funny;
3 pages didn’t go by without me smiling.
Leslie and Peter bounce off each other extremely well and
I’m really happy that Leslie has joined the team at the Folly and becoming a
more involved fully round character. Together they make a great team, Peter’s
wandering mind is wonderfully balanced by Leslie’s focus. His imagination by
her professionalism. It’s one of those partnerships where they do both truly
bring something to the couple. And it helps that their banter is funny.
The book is also racially extremely diverse. And not just
diverse with token inclusions or even with a mixed race main character – but also
with a strong sense of culture and awareness. From food, the family, from hair,
to cultural outlook – this book doesn’t just throw in some darker skin tones or
a hijab and tick the diversity box – it creates characters, real people with
culture and background and personality.
It also deals with racism – not big dramatic incidents or
moments of preaching. But the micro-aggressions Peter and the other POC face
are certainly covered. They’re never accepted, they’re always underscored as
wrong and they’re not brushed under the carpet while we pretend it never ever
happens or they’re once in a lifetime incidents. It’s extremely well portrayed –
and it extends to other issues as well, including class, unfairness and dodgy
police actions. No lecturing, no big dramatic moments, but constant side
reminders of the daily problems and issues that fit seamlessly into the story.
If I have a complaint on the diversity front, it’s with
the gay characters. While I like the lesbian detective, she is highly
stereotypical, though I do like the fact that everyone’s too damn scared of her
to pull any homophobic nonsense. Unfortunately, any reference to gay men in the
story are about men Peter assumes are gay based mainly on their clothing. There
are some side references to the existence of gay people but, again, in rather
stereotyped fashion.
When I got this book, I started reading. Piffling things
kept trying to interrupt me but I wasn’t to be disturbed. I’m not sure (the
outside world just faded away) but I may have been walled up in a small room with
warning signs and fed coffee until I finished it, for fear I would bite anyone
who dared to interrupt me. It’s an excellent book with amazing characters, a
brilliant story, a rich, wide, very real world and an endless source of
amusement. It was an effort of will not to return to the front of the book as
soon as I’d finished it.
