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.
