Foxglove Summer
Rivers of London, Book 5
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Foxglove Summer
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Narrated by:
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Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
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By:
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Ben Aaronovitch
About this listen
In the fifth of his best-selling series Ben Aaronovitch takes Peter Grant out of whatever comfort zone he might have found and takes him out of London - to a small village in Herefordshire where the local police are reluctant to admit that there might be a supernatural element to the disappearance of some local children. But while you can take the London copper out of London you can't take the London out of the copper.
Travelling west with Beverley Brook, Peter soon finds himself caught up in a deep mystery and having to tackle local cops and local gods. And what's more all the shops are closed by 4pm....
Read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.
©2014 Ben Aaronovitch (P)2014 Orion Publishing GroupListeners also enjoyed...
I will keep this spoiler free for the previous books, in case you're reading in advance, but I will add that this isn't a series easily understood out of order. Of course if you have read the others and are venturing to audiobook for the first time I will add her that Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is an amazing narrator, who really brings every character to life. In this book there's a ninety-year old man that he just gets perfectly.
Peter Grant is without his London and we get to see how far he has come on from the clueless architecture-loving policeman who was thrown into the maelstrom that is the supernatural world. Character growth and change, especially in the protagonist, can be hard to get right in long novel-series but this book really gives Peter the room he needs.
The mix of police-procedural, well-researched fantasy, jazz(pop)-culture humour and notes-on-architecture-of-the-British-Isles still gels brilliantly five books later. In fact, I've learnt a lot over the last few years from cornicing to police computer systems and now I know more about the inner workings of the forestry commission than I ever thought I would. I love how naturally this information flows into what is, at its heart, a plot driven novel about a hunt to find the missing children before their time is up.
I adore these books: the sense of humour is spot on, I love the characters, and I feel invested in their crazy but yet realistic lives. Obviously some books in the series are going to be slightly more amazing than others and Broken Homes was a high-point for me. There were a lot of questions raised in Broken Homes that haven't been answered yet so Foxglove Summer didn't feel quite as important to the main story arc. It did clear up some questions from books 1-3 and add a few extra layers to the mystery.
Bring on book number six - this is my brain on magic.
You can take a city wizard to the country but...
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Sadly, hardly any Nightingale but some intriguing texts from Leslie.
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is excellent, as ever. He just "is" Peter Grant so it's hard to imagine him sounding any different.
As ever, read them in order; these are not standalone books. If you are the kind of person who reads books out of order and then complains about it not making sense then there's really nothing to be done for you.
Anyway, what happens next?
You can take the boy out of London....
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
This will not be the greatest of the series (for one thing it is Just. Too. Short!) but has it's own levels of satisfaction if you spend time looking deeper. The Folly's past comes up and Peter finaly finds out what did happen at Ettersburg from one of the few who survived coming back. Beverly gets him sorted emotionally (Poor tree) and he invents an electronic substitute for Nightingale's cadwalloper, before being given 2 Staff, British Army, Battle, Wisard (for the use of): vintage!The referances to Prachet's book and LotR films add a smile.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Aside from Peter it has to be The Vintage, Veteran exWisard. And the carnivorous unicorns.What about Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s performance did you like?
Is there a voice or accent he can't do? He paces the narative to the passage and if he wrongly voices a line it has yet to jump out at me.Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Peter and the tree.Any additional comments?
If Aaronovich is not at least 1/3 of the way into book 6... So many hints! A year?!Too. Short.
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Ben and Peter at there best.
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Holdbrook-Smith nails the narration once more, turning a good story into a great audiobook.
As usual, a fun and entertaining listen
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