Peter and Lesley are still trying to track down the
Faceless Man and his erstwhile pupils; it’s a long, tedious task only
achievable by dogged police work.
Of course, the understaffed magical police force has
plenty of other things to drag their attention – an ancient magical book that a
thief tried to sell, a man committing a very suspicious suicide, people being
microwaved, a Russian military trained witch and the gods and goddesses of the
Thames demanding their attention. And some of it is definitely linked to a
bemusing tower block that doesn’t quite make sense
There’s a lot to handle – and the Faceless Man’s
influence is definitely behind some of it – but which and why?
Nightingale insists the Faceless man is no Moriarty – but
he may be wrong on this one
When a copy of this book was pushed through my door on
Friday evening, I opened it then cleared my desk, dropped my e-reader and
turned off my phone. There would be no interruptions. When the sun rose
Saturday morning, I had finished reading it – and could finally allow myself to
sleep
It’s an excellent sign of a good book – does it rob me of sleep? Can I read all 357 pages of it without any breaks? And, particularly, can I read it in one setting and not even take a break to get coffee? The answer to all is yes, I love this book more than coffee.
There’s so much about this book I love. I love its realness
– which sounds strange about a book that is about the supernatural, but it’s
true. I love the sense of London you get from every page, the very real place
that it conjures, the actual real place that it relates to. You can feel London
– and intimate knowledge of London - on every page. I can’t undersell how
powerful the setting is.
But the realness doesn’t just stop at the city, there’s
also a lot of research that has gone into Peter’s job as a policeman. The
procedures, the bodies he deals with, the hoops he has to jump through. His wry
views of both the public through a policeman’s eyes and the same wry criticism
of the police’s own failings both historic and present (especially as a Black
man who grew up in a poor neighbourhood). When so many crime stories have
magical forensics, impossibly fast deductions, so little actual investigation
and police work and such a very fast and loose approach to what the law
actually means, it’s so excellent that this Urban Fantasy book has a more
realistic presentation of police work than any number of crime dramas. My
personal favourite was replacing the jurisdictional battles (“it’s my case! How
dare you steal my case!”) with police forces trying to push cases on each other
because they can see how much budget it’s going to eat up.
Woven into that is an extremely complex and varied and
deep world with rules and structure that makes for some of the best Urban
Fantasy. But it’s coupled with both a willingness to allow characters – even awesomely
powerful, knowledgeable characters – to be ignorant. Parts of the world
building is covered by “I don’t know” and it’s not sloppy world building – it’s
an acknowledgement that no-one would know everything about magic any more than
we today know all there is to know about physics. The magical is blended into
not just the present fabric of London as it is presented, but it’s also heavily
entwined historically as well – the supernatural is carefully included as part
of the history of Europe adding a layer of richness to the world. At the same
time, even with the extremely long explanations that the book includes, we’re
not given more of the world building than we can actually handle – it’s not too
much or too overwhelming, it is handled with some restraint
Perhaps above all, I love Peter’s voice. I love his
snarky self-depreciation, I love his wry view of the world, I love his
underlying optimism. I love the character and his relationship to his family,
how he clearly loves them, is amused by them, reacts to them and isn’t
blinkered to the faults of his father. His relationship with Nightingale is
excellent (and I truly loved seeing Nightingale truly let rip in this book to
remind us that this quiet, unassuming, faultlessly polite man has such immense
power). His relationship with Lesley works better now she’s moved more firmly
away from being a love interest (there’s a hint around, but strong friendship
is now much more clearly on the cards).
I like Lesley and she was much more present in this book
so a more integral part of the story. However this did kind of make the focus
on Peter a little more shaky – because Lesley was there nearly all the time but
despite being present didn’t seem to be as involved as him. Which doesn’t work
well with the general presentation of her as being much more capable,
intelligent and skilled than Peter himself, which is a great portrayal. I think
some of this can be explained by the ending but we shall see. Once element I
appreciated was that Lesley is a far more unsympathetic, hard nosed copper to
Peter’s more forgiving, more liberal, more bleeding heart approach which not
only breaks stereotype but links nicely to their backgrounds.
I am curious to see Varava and what the book will do with her – she has the potential to be another strong female character if she is developed and her history and personality expanded above and beyond what we’ve already seen. As ever, I love the Thames goddesses even if they played a much more minor role this book.
Peter is a Black man, mixed race, and as in previous
books we have a lot of low key commentary as to what that means and how that
affects him, both with the culture shared with him and his mother from Sierra
Leone, and his awareness of the prejudice he and other POC face. It’s always
low key and often alluded to but not made into clumsy lectures, it’s well
integrated into the story. The book is also interesting in that the race of
people we meet is often referred to – you do see that in a lot of books but
they tend to only identify the POC. For example, I’ve read a book that said “a
little girl played with an Asian boy”, the POC’s race was identified, the
(automatically assumed) white person’s race was not. This book breaks that –
race is included as a valid descriptor of a person, but that includes white
people.
There’s also some excellent class commentary, funny and
dry references to the very real reasons why many people don’t have a great deal
of faith in the police, nor do they welcome them. Peter’s dedication to winning
trust and proving himself rather than just assuming authority (which Lesley,
from a more prosperous background, is more likely to assume). There’s some
great commentary on well meaning, but ultimately ignorant and rather
patronising wealthy do-gooders and some nice side swipes at the media’s
over-dramatic portrayal of poorer areas.
We do have several gay men referred to in this book – but
only one actually has lines to speak and those pretty brief (though I did like
his ex-Catholic mother announcing she would go back to the church only when it
apologised). They’re not characters, they’re background colour, but at least
there is some acknowledgement that
I’m going to have to break this praise for some caveats
because I think a lot about this book is going to be highly subjective. Firstly,
the humour is extremely British. The theme is extremely British. The setting
is, obviously British, the references are British – this is a quintessentially British
novel. There’s a good chance that a lot of the things that makes this book
supremely awesome rather than just good will go over the heads of people who
are not British.
Secondly, there is a lot of detail in this book. A lot.
Loads of information about the location, the history, the magical world, police
procedure, the way the various myriad powers that run (or don’t run) London
work – it’s huge and it’s detailed. And if you’re not comfortable with this
huge detail it may seem slow to you
Thirdly, the story is presented with several threads at once – Peter and Lesley don’t get to shelve everything in their lives, their studies or the different cases so they can focus on one case. They have several different cases, several different events, dealings with the supernatural beings that make up the world – this means we have a lot of side plots, a lot of leads and a lot of cases running parallel to each other. This can be confusing and it can lose the thread as well as the pacing.
As to the ending – massive tension, awesome excitement
totally edge of my seat reading until… NOOOOOOOOOO! No no no no, how can this be?!
Noooooo! Yes, it’s one of those moments when you shout aloud at your book, as
if that could change what you just read.
And that is all I will say on the matter without giving
big, massive spoilers. But I despair! I despair! It says a lot about the
quality of the characters that you can feel this kind of emotion for them. And
I despair. Utterly and totally.
I have, grudgingly, included caveats as to why this book
may not suit you. But this book was truly excellent – and an excellent
continuation of this series. The meta plot has moved forwards, the world
continues to be developed, the story drew me in and completely immersed me. I
love this book, it’s brilliantly written has an incredible world, has
characters I love – it drew me in and didn’t let go of me until I’d reached the
last page and it’s only through firm determination that I didn’t flip back to
page 1 and start reading again.
A copy of this book
was received from the author for a review. And he signed it showing there are
still awesome uses for paper books
