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Stone and Sky

Out Now: The Brand New Rivers of London Novel

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Stone and Sky

By: Ben Aaronovitch
Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Shvorne Marks
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About this listen

THE BRAND NEW NOVEL IN THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING RIVERS OF LONDON SERIES

'This isn't London. The rules are different up here, and so are the allegiances.'

Detective Sergeant Peter Grant takes a much-needed holiday up in Scotland. And he'll need one when this is over...

If more's the merrier, then it's ecstatic as his partner Beverley, their young twins, his mum, dad, his dad's band and their dodgy manager all tag along. Even his boss, DCI Thomas Nightingale, takes in the coastal airs as he trains Peter's cousin Abigail in the arcane arts.

And they'll need them too, because Scotland's Granite City has more than its fair share of history and mystery, myth ... and murder.

When a body is found in a bus stop, fresh from the sea, the case smells fishy from the off.

Something may be stirring beyond the bay - but there's something far stranger in the sky...

* * * * *

'Ben Aaronovitch has created a wonderful world full of mystery, magic and fantastic characters. I love being there more than the real London'
NICK FROST

'An incredibly fast-moving magical joyride for grown-ups'
THE TIMES

©2025 Ben Aaronovitch (P)2025 Orion Publishing Group Limited Crime Fiction Fantasy Mystery Police Procedurals England Magic Boss
All stars
Most relevant
One of the joys about these books is KHS's narration. Sadly the second narrator really doesn't reach the same high standards. The accents are really poor Peter's mum becomes West Indian at one point, KHB has given Nightingale and others a distinctive voice which isn't equaled by the second narrator. The story is ok, not one of the better ones but the performance, usually a highlight is a let down here.

Real shame about the shared narration

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So the last PG entry before this one I wasn’t keen on, this one is a step up from that. However I didn’t like the mixing of Peters and Abigail’s pov’s as i was put off by the tonal changes. They would have been fine if they were issued as separate novellas. It also peeves me that the graphic novels get referenced a lot as I haven’t read them yet. However this was still an entertaining entry in the series and bonus points for mermaids and silkies. Voice actors were great as always.

Not sure about this one

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Since being recommended the Folly books 4 years ago I have listened repeatedly to the Folly series.
Haven't listened to any of the Abigail books as I felt the narration(for me) lacked the depth and quality of Kobna.
Only he is the voice of Nightingale.
For me this didn't have the complexity, description or detail of previous novels.
Disappointing

A little disappointing

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I’ve really enjoyed this series and Kobna’s narration is continually excellent and he is once again excellent in this book, but the problems lie elsewhere.

The story feels half-hearted and thin. It’s just not as interesting or engaging as the others in the series. As a whole I don’t think the series is getting worse over time and if anything, the previous book in the series was one of the best, but this one falls well short.

Abigail’s chapters are far too numerous and extremely irritating to me. They aren’t helped by some truly atrocious Scottish accents by Shvorne Marks (we’re in Dick Van Dyke cockney territory here) and the author’s ceaseless attempts to shoehorn in as much modern London slang as possible. Every sentence is littered with ‘wastemen’, ‘mandem’ etc and it isn’t done convincingly at all. I guess I just don’t find Abigail interesting.

There’s too little Nightingale in this one as well - I wish the author had given Abigail fewer chapters and Nightingale more. Hopefully in future Abigail can have her own standalone novellas (which I’ll ignore) and leave the main series to Peter, Beverley and Nightingale.

Disappointing

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I was so excited to listen to this but was sorely disappointed. The Peter parts were good as usual if a little sloppy with references to his river goddess however,it was the sheer volume of the Abigail focused chapters that really let the story down. I found the use of slang jarring as well as the poor narration (including poor accents) unlistenable, and I still want to know how she knew the panther was female when she saw it lying on its side. I got as far as Abigail groping the siren before I decided not to continue with her chapters, the whole thing felt a bit off due to her obsessive thoughts. This unfortunately meant that I did miss some parts of the story so I will go back and read the book and skim her chapters, without the bad accents and generally lackluster narration. In other areas there was too many references to graphic novels and short stories and a mention of a well known author which very much should have been removed and substituted with someone else well known to wear black. It was in poor taste, and should have been caught by the editor and a very strong recommendation to remove it should have been given. All in all, just a meh book unfortunately.

Meh

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