"A
mutilated body in Crawley. Another killer on the loose. The prime suspect is
one Robert Weil; an associate of the twisted magician known as the Faceless
Man? Or just a common or garden serial killer? Before PC Peter Grant can get
his head round the case a town planner going under a tube train and a stolen
grimoire are adding to his case-load. So far so London. But then Peter gets
word of something very odd happening in Elephant and Castle, on a housing
estate designed by a nutter, built by charlatans and inhabited by the truly
desperate. Is there a connection? And if there is, why oh why did it have to be
South of the River?"
The fourth volume of Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, Broken Homes
is more pedestrian of the series, even as the book is getting a deeper and
richer world. There is some pacing issues here, and the book –more or less- has
several different storylines going (which may reflect a real cops life versus
one that handles a case at time). Still, Peter continues to be a fully realized
character, and even seems to somewhat more mature here (less wise-cracks, but
he is still the smartass), especially in the latter third of the novel where
the humor and jokes become less and less and the drama kicks in.
There is a twist at the end, which I did not see coming and am curious
where this will go in the next book. I’m a bit tired of the betrayal trope, and
it seemly comes out of nowhere (though, I guess, this would mean re-reading the
first three to see if Aaronovitch was setting things up). So while Broken Homes
follows the same basic set-up as the previous three, it also felt like “filler”,
with a meandering plot and surprise ending designed to lengthen the series. It
all feels like a set up for book five and to get there, Aaronovitch needed to
put a bunch of disconnected ideas here to get to next book.
I mean, a lot goes on, yet it also felt like not much went on. Weird, I
know.
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