Broken Homes

Masking Betrayal

Broken Homes
by Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz
ISBN: 9780575132481

Warning: A very big spoiler in this one so, if you are going to read this book at some point, I would suggest you read it before digging into this review.

Broken Homes is the fourth novel in the ever popular Rivers Of London series by Ben Aaronovitch and it’s yet another follow on from the original novel in that the lead villain from that story, who main protagonists Inspector Peter Grant, his friend Lesley (also an inspector) and their boss Nightingale, in the very small division of the metropolitan police dealing with magic… is once again the main antagonist here, known only as the mysterious ‘faceless man’.  People who have read the first will remember that, in that novel, the final battle with said bad guy caused Lesley’s face to fall off and, despite many attempts to undo this surgically in subsequent tomes, she still remains no further to getting her ‘beyond scarred’ mess of a visage fixed in any way, forcing her to also wear a mask when out and about.

This novel deals mainly with the area around Elephant and Castle and a specific tower block called the Skygarden, where Peter and Lesley eventually end up taking a flat, undercover, to try and figure out what’s going on. As it turns out, the building itself is the key to the nefarious plot of the faceless man and the various murders all lead back to having something to do with the periphery of this building.

And once again, it’s a wonderful blend of procedural detective work offset by the world of magic with absolutely loads of pop culture references and other clever things afoot. So a nice parody of Orwell’s Animal Farm can be found early on when Peter mentions (the novels are written from his point of view), “It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something but some members are more guilty than others.” Another clever thing is, when recounting a battle with one of the Dr. Moreau-like beast/human hybrids from the end of the second novel, he mentions having gone ‘mano-a-mano-tiger’ with him.

And, as usual, the various references to other franchises and works of fiction come thick and fast… with nods to such things as Harry Potter, Game Of Thrones, classic era Battlestar Galactica, Ghostbusters, Doctor Who (Peter refrains from correcting a reference about the Autons for fear of looking too nerdy), Something Wicked This Way Comes, Lord Of The Rings (the Skygarden block is compared to Isengard), Monty Python and even a mention of actress Zhang Ziyi. Along with, I’m sure, many others I’m not nearly nerdy enough to have picked up on. Perhaps my favourite shout out is to Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? or, knowing Peter, the movie version called Blade Runner (reviewed here), with a lovely passage about various questions he is using to interrogate a suspect which reads “I called it the Voigt-Kampff test, even though only Dr. Walid got the joke - and he had to look it up on Wikipedia.”

Now though, I have to address the big, shocking moment from the end of the novel. Which, to be fair, I had seen coming since book one and have been waiting for it to happen but, it still took me by surprise to some degree and, funnily enough, because I’d given up on my idea of the true allegiances of one of the characters about halfway through this book because she really does help with the investigation… or so I thought. Here’s the thing… ever since the first novel (and I believe I mentioned it in my review of that one and possibly in the second book review also), I’ve assumed that Peter’s best friend Lesley will, due to her traumatic experiences in the first novel, switch sides and join with the enemy. It’s too much of a perfect character arc of betrayal to ignore in her, I thought. 

However, I’d just about given up on the idea by about three quarters of the way through this novel but then, right near the end of the book, boom, it played out just as I’d thought it would (although the nature of the betrayal was so casual and off handed that it took me by surprise). Peter has the faceless man handcuffed and in his custody when Lesley tasers him and runs off with the villain… who has presumably got it in his power to grow her face back somehow (or at least I suspect that’s what has been the promise). So at the end of the story we have a very bitter Peter Grant and the crew of The Folly, where the entirety of the magic division lives, is just Nightingale, Peter, Molly the bizarre house servant (who has a loose end set up in this story which is buried and, I suspect, which the author will come back to in another novel), a new acquisition of a Russian magic terrorist being temporarily held prisoner there and, of course, Toby the dog.

And that’s me done with Broken Homes, I think. I’ve taken advantage of Forbidden Planet’s recent restock of the series in signed editions so the next five novels in the series should be on the blog this year some time. As per usual, I can’t say enough good things about these books and they are something I’ve been heavily recommending to people.

Moon Over Soho

Chimeras At Midnight

Moon Over Soho
by Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz
ISBN: 9780575097629

Moon Over Soho is the second novel in Ben Aaronovitch’s, so far quite brilliant, Rivers Of London series of novels (I reviewed the first installment right here). This one... which continues to revolve around police ‘apprentice to magic’ Peter Grant, who is to be the second of the Metropolitan police’s unofficial magic bureau  (after his guv’nor, Nightingale), based at ‘The Folly’... picks up on the action pretty soon where the last one left off. It’s actually, I have to say, not quite as twisty and turny as the first novel in the series and it’s fairly easy to get a jump on exactly just where the ‘mystery’ of this one is going. That being said, it’s still quite brilliant and is both witty and unusual.

This one deals with a mysterious killer using her ‘vagina dentata’ to bite the cocks off of men off as a method of killing and, also, a group of what Peter terms, ‘jazz vampires’. Not to mention some chimera and... well... lets call them cat people, to start off with. And, like the first (and presumably all) of these novels, it’s all set in and around areas of England’s capital which will be easily recognisable to most Londoners, especially those who have been alive long enough to know the places that have since vanished since Aaronovitch immortalised them here. Yeah, so there are a few places mentioned here which bought pangs of nostalgia and loss as I was reading about them... which is a shame.

So the branch of Valerie Patisserie, mentioned here as being the favourite place to source food from by one of the sexier characters is, I think, fairly recently gone. And the wonderful Ed’s Diner just off Cambridge Circus, my favourite place to eat in London, has now been gone a fair few years too, it’s sad to say. Similarly, a wonderfully exciting foot chase/fight sequence which takes place in The Trocadero in Piccadilly is another thing which, sadly for everyone who remembers the place, is long gone.

That being said, it’s nice to also read about events taking place in areas of Soho still very much around, such as The Groucho Club and, of course, my current favourite pub where a few friends and I meet for Christmas and birthday drinks every year, The Spice Of Life... where the first murder of the book takes place.

And it’s a nice mix of various elements but with a serious undertone to it, in that Peter’s ex-partner/friend Lesley, who still hasn’t recovered properly from her face falling off near the end of the last book, is having to live with the consequences of her inadvertent part of that last adventure. Gravitas aside though, it also has the required number of eclectic pop culture references although, I noticed this time that there seemed to be more literary ones than film references... such as Peter’s reference to The Strip Club Of Dr. Moreau or a startlingly clear but cleverly copyright free (it seems to me) reference to the fiendish devil Dr. Fu Manchu, which actually gives a small part of the origin of The Folly’s housekeeper, the vampire Molly. There’s also a ‘not so veiled’ set of references to Hogwarts, the school in the Harry Potter books which it is inevitable that people would make comparisons to, in terms of this series (myself included).

This one has got three things the first book didn’t really have... firstly, there seems to me to be a lot more emphasis on action rather than mystery. Not complaining, just a different style of story and I’m sure Aaronovitch adjusts the tone accordingly with each novel in the series (which I intend to read completely before long). Secondly, there’s a lot more sex in this... not graphic really, just a heck of a lot more of it but, this is also one of the things that gives the game away and which I suspect is unique to this novel. Without giving any spoilers, the sex certainly serves a story element which, sadly, put me well on track with a big part of the mystery long before, I suspect, I was supposed to cotton on to it.

Thirdly, this one doesn’t give you all the answers. There are things left unsaid and the main villain of the piece escapes justice at the end. One assumes that the writer is setting up a ‘Moriarty’ style arch-nemesis for Peter and Nightingale by the finish of this one. Nightingale has also not yet recovered from being shot near the end of the last book and it will be interesting to see if the action moves on year by year in the novels, since the London landscape being written about changes so much, making it practically a necessity to move the time setting on a fair dollop each novel, I would have thought.

Also, of course, there's also Aaronovitch’s magical way with words to describe certain things, my two favourite examples in this tome being “For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.” and also Peter’s wonderful description of the art of the burlesque dancer as “paying women to take off their clothes in an ironic, postmodern way...” which had me chuckling a bit, I can tell you.

And yeah, all this plus talking severed heads, a much larger and redeeming role for Peter’s dad (which, given the central plot all revolves around jazz, makes sense) and some more, brilliant ‘off beat’ characters that you know are just going to have to return in future novels in the series. Moon Over Soho is another terrific best seller in the Rivers Of London series (although, not a jumping on point, I think you need to read these in order) and I can’t wait to read the next one along.

Rivers Of London

Swazzle Stick

Rivers Of London
by Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz
ISBN: 9780575097582

One of the few joys of getting old is finding another writer whose work you really enjoy. The extra icing on that particular cake is when it’s the first book in what turns out to be a substantial series of novels already published. I think I’ve had a few recommendations from people to start up with the Rivers Of London series over the years, the last time from someone three years ago with whom I was doing jury service but, since the people who make these recommendations don’t know me that well, I’ve always put buying one of these books on the back burner, so to speak.

So I’m very pleased that I finally lifted the lid and read the first novel in the series and, a fine tome it turned out to be. Not quite what I was expecting either, to tell you the truth. Set in modern London (mostly... I’ll talk about that in a little while) the books follows the first big adventure of graduate policeman Peter Grant and his colleague/friend/crush Lesley May. Told in first person viewpoint by Grant, who really is the main protagonist here, the book starts off in Covent Garden with these two young coppers guarding a crime scene late at night. The crime scene in question dealing with a man near the actor’s church in Covent Garden, who has had his head knocked off. When Lesley goes to get coffee for them both in the small hours of the morning, Peter finds himself face to face with a witness to the crime. The only problem with that is... the witness is a very old ghost.

The book goes on from there as Peter and Lesley discover a previously unknown (to them) one man branch of the police dealing with ‘magic and occult’ phenomena. A man known as Nightingale. Peter becomes his apprentice, learning how to cast spells and detect supernatural phenomena... since Nightingale is also a very old wizard. Along the way, Peter and Lesley find themselves entrenched in a very dangerous investigation, negotiating the practicalities and bureaucracy of dealing with the existence of Gods, monsters and other creatures that go more than just bump in the night. Generally putting themselves in very dangerous situations where, if you’re not careful in the case of the main antagonist of this particular case... your face might fall off.

And it’s great, shot through with a very strong dose of humour right from the outset. The main characters are all very likeable and the situations they find themselves in inhabit a world which could easily be cliché ridden but, in actuality, are told with a certain freshness and sparkle that you don’t always find in more poe faced works dealing with this kind genre, or indeed ‘genre mix’, as it marries strong fantasy elements (including the rivers and their rulers fighting over territories... such as rivals Father Thames and Mama Thames) with modern police procedural methods and references. It’s by no means downgrading the police but I do like the fact that it’s par for the course in this novel for certain officers to falsify evidence and witness reports, lying at the request of their senior officers which, when Peter has to do that, gets him the compliment of “You do have the makings of a proper copper.”

Also, when the writer/narrative voice starts to make jokes about the Midichlorians from the Star Wars prequels and paraphrases a line from Blade Runner (things which the reader would either know or not and, Peter usually doesn’t get a laugh from these since the characters he cracks them with don’t seem to recognise what he’s talking about) then... well, Aaranovitch already had me hooked but even more so once he’s started down this road. There even another discrete reference, again not spelled out, to the 1972 British movie Death Line, at one point.

More humour is found when Peter’s attempts at learning magic have some decidedly dodgy and damaging results at times. Plus casual one liners such as when he’s told a suspect is hiding in Walthamstow and his first thought is “Many would say that was punishment enough.”, had me in stitches... or as close as I get to stitches on my generally unsmiling features.

The approach to magic is something I quite enjoyed too. Peter is picked on because Nightingale sees something special in him, particularly considering he managed to see... and interview for a witness statement... a ghost, when he didn’t even believe in them until then. And the way Peter approaches the many magical realms opened up to him is to relate it all to science and he experiments with it the same way a scientist might test various hypothesis... very much in laboratory conditions.

The other big thing I enjoyed was the many shout outs to parts of London that I know well. Most of the locales Aaranovitch writes about are known to me and I find it ironic, since I don’t go into London as much as I used to. That’s also going to age the books for future readers too, I’m afraid. This book was first published in 2011 and, already in 11 years, many of the shops and haunts he writes about have changed or disappeared. I remember them but, I suspect that as Peter carries on in future books, he will note the changes to certain places in the text... at which point it will probably be a London I recognise less with each passing book unless I start going down there more regularly and actively revisiting these areas for myself.

And the story develops in a way which I didn’t see coming until it was revealed either (which is a hard thing to do to me, to be honest, I usually see stuff coming a mile off). There was one point in the story where a particularly horrible and terminal crime is committed against a babe in arms which, honestly, should have given me a big clue as to where this was all going... I just wasn’t expecting it and I missed it completely. And I’m really not complaining... that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Surprise me with the writing and I’m going to stay interested, for sure.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about Rivers Of London other than, as a sign of respect to the hundreds of books on my to read pile, the second volume in the series, Moon Over Soho, will definitely be going on my Christmas list and I’m planning on reading all the other books in the series during 2023 too, if I can afford books on top of all these new energy bills... I might be piling them all up and burning them to get some heat going instead, if I’m not careful. But, if you like stuff like the Night Watch books and are happy if I describe these novels a being a kind of Harry Potter for grown ups... then you should probably like this one, for sure.