Books: Stone and Sky (Rivers of London 10) by Ben Aaronovitch (2025)

“If mores the merrier, then Peter’s ecstatic as his partner Beverly, their young twins, his Mum and Dad, his dad’s band, and their dodgy manager, all tag along on a holiday to Scotland. 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 start. Something may be stirring beyond the bay, but there is something far stranger in the sky.” 

After nine novels set within London and the surrounding area, the tenth volume in The Rivers of London series takes a page from every other long-running series (TV, films, books), by going on the road. With now Peter settled down with Bev, had the twins, and has been told by Nightingale he plans to retire, the next adventure awaits. So what’s that? You go on holiday –well, in the end, a sort of working holiday. So from the magic filled city of London, our heroes venture up north, up to Scotland and the Granite city of Aberdeen –a place that apparently has some supernatural hijinks going on. 

Not that this is a bad thing. 

Anyways, Stone and Sky removes the familiar London surroundings and Aaronvitch gives us a deep dive into Aberdeen and its myths and legends – and plenty architectural information to make anyone who loves that stuff very happy (according to his Technical Notes at the end, he spent seven months up in Scotland, or Scot Land as some of the locals call it, researching the book).

I mentioned in the last book, 2022’s Amongst Your Weapons, how the series was sort of flagging. At the time, nine volumes were maybe enough. Plus, he seemed happy to be working on the graphic novels (which are seemly moving the story forwards at a faster pace) and the occasional novella. 

So maybe here, he’s attempting to shift the series more towards Abigail (she is more prominent here than any of the previous novels), with Peter eventually taking in the teacher role that Nightingale has (no mention of his retirement here), though he appears to be mentoring Abigail. Also, not sure, but this book is appears to set in 2017 or 2018, as Aaronvitch mentions The Felon in office here in the United States. This may also be because of the relationship Abigail gets herself into in this book. 

But while she takes up part of the narrative here, it becomes a bit confusing at times, especially since Aaronovitch drops a large volume of characters here – most who don’t impact the story or are there only to move the story forward. Still, the biggest issue with this novel is how much the author ignores the overreaching arcs of the previous nine books, making Stone and Sky feel like – in the parlance of TV vocabulary- a “bottle episode” (despite what would be an expensive location shoot). 

There is also a lot of Scottish slang and language used here. It gives it some local flair, I guess, but can be distracting as the reader may need to go over a sentence several times before the brain can translate it properly. 

In the end, a worthy read for fans – but those invested in Peter maybe disappointed how much he becomes secondary to Abigail. Clearly, for me, Aaronovitch has decided there was a need to expand his universe (another issue with long-running series) by introducing new characters that will appear, probably, in other tales of The Folly. 

Books: The Masquerades of Spring By Ben Aaronovitch (2024)

“Here we meet Augustus Berrycloth-Young - fop, flaneur, and Englishman abroad - as he chronicles the Jazz Age from his perch atop the city that never sleeps. That is, until his old friend Thomas Nightingale arrives, pursuing a rather mysterious affair concerning an old saxophone - which will take Gussie from his warm bed, to the cold shores of Long Island, and down to the jazz clubs where music, magic, and madness haunt the shadows.”

The Masquerades of Spring is another novella to the Rivers of London series. As with the other ones, Peter Grant is nowhere to be found, as the book is set in the mid 1920s.

Augustus Berrycloth-Young (AKA Gussie) is a delightfully fun character and you can’t help but like him from the start. He's a bit of a dandy, incredibly witty, and very, very British. This novella gives Aaronovitch more comic license gets a better grip on both British and American slang that caused me some ire in Winter’s Gift.

It’s also very clear that Augustus is based on Bertie Wooster, created by P.G. Wodehouse. He’s a jazz-loving, “wizard” whose lack of insight rivals that legendary character. Still, his take on understanding opera is fairly brilliant:

"Now, I have often said that the principal difference between the musical offerings of Sissle and Blake, Gershwin and Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, and those of the likes of Verdi, Tosca and some other bally Italian I have forgotten the name of, is that one might take one’s seat for the former with no fear that one will leave the theatre none the wiser with regards to the story. Whereas on those occasions when I have been dragged bodily to the opera, I have spent the entire show trying to work out why Man A is singing angrily at Man B while Woman C trills sadly in the corner. And to rub salt into the wound, as it were, I have the strongest feeling that everybody else in the theatre but me knows exactly what is going on."

It’s also fun to watch a British writer take a British character and drop him in New York of the 1920s, with its prohibitions, fancy clothes, and its brutish police force. So while it offers no new insight into Nightingale, it doesn’t really matter, as Augustus Berrycloth-Young makes the entire story shine. I wonder if Aaronovitch will let us see anymore adventures of Gussie and his manservant/lover Lucien (AKA as Lucy).

Books: Winter’s Gifts By Ben Aaronovitch (2023)

“When retired FBI Agent Patrick Henderson calls in an ‘X-Ray Sierra India’ incident, the operator doesn’t understand. He tells them to pass it up the chain till someone does. That person is FBI Special Agent Kimberley Reynolds. Leaving Quantico for snowbound Northern Wisconsin, she finds that a tornado has flattened half the town – and there’s no sign of Henderson. Things soon go from weird to worse, as neighbors report unsettling sightings, key evidence goes missing, and the snow keeps rising – cutting off the town, with no way in or out. Something terrible is awakening. As the clues lead to the coldest of cold cases – a cursed expedition into the frozen wilderness – Reynolds follows a trail from the start of the American nightmare, to the horror that still lives on today.”

Winter’s Gifts is another delightful novella linked to, but not central to, Ben Aaronovitch’s fun urban fantasy novels, the UK based Rivers of London series. Kimberley, as side character in other books, comes forward here in a well-paced, but not really deep tale about Native Spirits of Wisconsin and ill-conceived 1844 Marsh Expedition.  I like her, but at some point a British writer trying to write about an American women in the United States –and in Wisconsin to boot-, you get a bit distracted by some Aaronvitch’s failed attempts –deliberate or not- to sound like he knows what he’s writing about. But American writers make British characters all stereotypes, so why not a British author doing light urban fantasy? Like all winter coats are called parkas, everyone has guns and pulls them on visitors; coffee is brewed on a kettle on the burner, uses the word flashlight (instead of torches), but uses tyres instead of tires, frostbite into frostnip, and headlights into headlamps. There are other examples, but you get the point.

Still, nothing feels too off. I grew up in northwestern suburbs of Chicago, and my paternal Great Aunt lived in Waupaca, Wisconsin (where my uncle now lives), so Aaronvitch gets the basic aspects of the state correct. It’s also another avenue in the Rivers of London books to explore, which opens the series, as any series ages, it can become stale. He’ll do that again later in the year when The Masquerades of Spring novella is released and is set in New York at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th Century.

Books: Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch (2022)

“There is a world hidden underneath this great city. The London Silver Vaults—for well over a century, the largest collection of silver for sale in the world. It has more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a paparazzi convention. Not somewhere you can murder someone and vanish without a trace—only that’s what happened. The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of light, and memory loss amongst the witnesses all take this a case for Detective Constable Peter Grant and the Special Assessment Unit. Alongside their boss DCI Thomas Nightingale, the SAU find themselves embroiled in a mystery that encompasses London’s tangled history, foreign lands and, most terrifying of all, the North! And Peter must solve this case soon, because back home his partner Beverley is expecting twins any day now. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s about to encounter something—and somebody—that nobody ever expects.” 

After nine books dealing with wizards and magic, Amongst Our Weapons settles down into legends of religion, specifically the Inquisition (which nobody suspects, obviously). What works well for this series remains the familiarity of it, with old characters popping up, introducing new ones (which hopefully will stay a bit), Aaronovitch’s love of architecture, both ancient and obscure and Peter Grant’s one-liners and continued DOCTOR WHO references are good things to rely on. The other thing about reading this series –well the last eight spread over several months- is that the consistencies and continuity aspects are really great. But, alas, since I’m now caught up, I may end forgetting some stuff as we await a tenth book (though another novella, called Winter’s Gift, is due out in the UK in June. Gawd knows when the US edition will be released, but I’m guessing not until 2024).

Anyways, this was a good book, filled with a lot of historical aspects of religion and the puns and jokes hit remarkably well. Still, the pacing issues remain and unending battle between Lesley and Peter is starting to take on a Doctor/Master aspect –were the Master (AKA, Lesley) gets involved in some sort of supernatural high jinks only to get away when no one is looking.  

Which brings me to the thought that while this book was well written, it also seems that Aaronovtich has no idea where to go next. This was obvious with the last book, and this makes it a bit more. Like any long running, successful series, there comes a time when ending it on a high note is more important that just pumping out titles because the books are successful.

Maybe it’s time to close out Peter’s adventures and move onto something else?

Books: False Value By Ben Aaronovitch (2020)

“Peter Grant is facing fatherhood, and an uncertain future, with equal amounts of panic and enthusiasm. Rather than sit around, he takes a job with émigré Silicon Valley tech genius Terrance Skinner's brand new London start up—the Serious Cybernetics Corporation. Drawn into the orbit of Old Street's famous 'silicon roundabout', Peter must learn how to blend in with people who are both civilians and geekier than he is. Compared to his last job, Peter thinks it should be a doddle. But magic is not finished with Mama Grant's favorite son. But Terrence Skinner has a secret hidden in the bowels of the SCC, a technology that stretches back to Ada Lovelace (an English mathematician and writer, who was chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine) and forward to the future of artificial intelligence. A secret that is just as magical as it technological—and just as dangerous.”

The eighth book in the Rivers of London series is a more serious, more straightforward tale than previously. The humor is still there, the in-jokes and sly references for longtime fantasy readers and pop culture geeks are still here, but the tone is shifted a bit. Peter seems older (though some timeline issues are discussed below), maybe a bit more settled as he awaits the birth of his twins with Beverly Brooks. Aaronovitch also tries something new here with the narrative, with the first bunch of chapters bouncing back and forth between December 2015 and January 2016. It’s a bit jarring at first. And Skinner, a quirky little tech billionaire has referenced Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in all his organizational roles and policies, which is fun for Hitchhiker’s fans, but the author does take the joke a bit far.

After seven books, False Value is setting up a new arc, and I’m unsure where this will go. A lot of what urban fantasy readers like about this sub-genre is put on hold somewhat, as this book sets a more science fiction vibe, a Doctor Who vibe in some respect (as Aaronovitch launched his career with the franchise some 35 years ago), if I may be so bold. There some new characters, especially American’s Stephen and the Librarian, Mrs. Chin stand out. I’m still not sold on the whole baby situation and will be curious where this will go, as well.

The ninth book won’t be released in paperback until the end of March, so this series goes into sleep mode for now.

Also, it took me a while, but I eventually noticed that despite the year or two between books, in the universe of the River of London series, that timeline is much smaller.

The author mentioned at one time that the three first novels were originally supposed to be set in 2011, giving Peter enough head start of his apprenticeship to tackle the character of Antoine Bobet in 2012, during the London Olympic games and as seen in his short story The Home Crowd Advantage (first released on his blog and is now included in the short story collection Tales From the Folly, which I’ve still not acquired). But eventually, those first three books all happened in 2012. So The Home Crowd Advantage is slightly off-canon as it is set 2012. I’m sure not many noticed. The fourth book, Broken Homes (2013) is set the spring of 2013, followed by Foxglove Summer and the novella What Abigail Did that Summer. There are few story stories and graphic novels that take place sometime later in 2013 and early 2014. The Furthest Station (2017) novella is set in the summer of 2014, with The Hanging Tree (also 2017) settling into the fall of that year; Lies Sleeping (2018) is set in the summer of 2015, as is the novella The October Men (in October, naturally). False Value (2020) is set in 2016, as Peter’s first day at the Serious Cybernetics Corporation coincides with the death of David Bowie, which pinpoints the date to January 10th, 2016. But the real beginning is set in December 2015.

The reason I bring this up is because to keep the story smooth, but knowing that his universe is getting bigger (graphic novels, games, and novellas), you have to keep an eye on continuity. As such, False Value has a lot references to 3D printers and drones. At times, I felt what he wanted both to do was seemed far more advanced in 2016 than they should be –though he points out in a Technical Note at the back of the book that those two modern devices remain a “rapidly evolving technology,” so who knows, maybe is 2016 they could do what the story needed them to do.