Book review: Foxglove Summer

In Ben Aaronovitch's last novel, police constable and apprentice wizard Peter Grant considered himself well out of his comfort zone in having to cross the river and work in South London, but Foxglove Summer sees him leave London completely and investigate the case of two missing schoolgirls in the countryside. He also ends up somewhere even further away for the big finale, and in the process figures out the true nature of The Folly's vampiric housekeeper (it's not what he thinks.) Most of the usual characters stay behind in London so Aaronovitch gets to play around with a new dynamic, with Beverley Brook, the river goddess and Peter's on-off girlfriend, getting a more active role in the story; there's a new gay character whose sexuality is entirely incidental as well, so that's good.

It's one of the more enjoyable stories in the Rivers of London series, although some of the conceits of Aaronovitch's prose are starting to grate on me a bit: I know people are likely to say "me and Beverley" in normal conversation when "Beverley and I" is correct, but using it so much in writing really annoys me, especially when it's such an easy rule to learn. And I do like the way the writer points out, via his mixed-race narrator, how western literature tends to assume a character is white unless told otherwise, and in contrast Peter always describes a new character's race regardless of what it is; but at times he's so obviously making a point it defeats the object, like when Peter walks into a room and it's made clear everyone in it is white, and he then goes on to individually tell us each of the characters is white as well.

But while I'd like the books to have a slightly stricter editor sometimes, I'm still enjoying them for the most part, and the change of location brings a fresh touch to this instalment, while keeping the series' ongoing story on hold, presumably for a big finale in a book or two's time.