REVIEW: Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch
Dear Mr. Aaronovitch,
Foxglove Summer, the fifth book in your urban fantasy series, finds the hero of the series, police constable and wizard-in-training Peter Grant, driving out to the countryside to help investigate a missing persons case.
Two eleven year old girls, Hannah Marstowe and Nicole Lacey, have disappeared from the small village of Rushpool. Sent to Herefordshire to see if a retired wizard named Hugh Oswald might have had a hand in the children’s disappearance, Peter quickly clears Hugh and his not-quite-human granddaughter, Melissa, and then volunteers to help out the local police.
Since at first glance it appears to be an ordinary missing persons case—the girls are thought to have run away together—Peter is sent to liaise with / babysit Hannah’s family, in order to free a search-trained officer.
Peter also befriends a local cop named Dominic, so he is on hand when Dominic’s friend Stan (“Short for Samantha”) makes a discovery which may be related to the case. Stan is a drug addict and hides her stash in the woods, yet someone has now stolen it. There are no tracks near the place from where the stash was taken, and Stan’s first thought is an odd one—that a pony got into it.
The find yields no further clues, though, and by day three of the search the local police chiefs are desperate enough to ask Peter to do what they term “a Falcon assessment” on the entire case.
So Peter reads through the police files and learns that the girls’ cell phones were found by the side of the road, both dead, and that a school friend of Nicole and Hannah’s said Nicole had an invisible friend. Peter requests that the phones be looked at under a microscope, and the resulting photos reveal a pattern consistent with degradation caused by proximity to magic.
The investigation is interrupted by the arrival of a certain river goddess. It seems Beverley, on the scene to assist in the investigation, has gotten into a disagreement with a couple of the local rivers. Meanwhile, Leslie also contacts Peter, but it’s unclear what her purpose is in doing so.
Can Peter help sort out the river situation? Who has taken the two girls and why? Do the UFO sightings in the area have anything to do with the case? Will Nicole and Hannah be found? Will the person or entity responsible for the kidnapping be brought to justice?
Your last book, Broken Homes, annoyed the crap out of me for various reasons, chief among them that although I saw it coming, I really, really didn’t want Peter to be betrayed by Leslie. I was disappointed that you would have Leslie do such a trite, predictable thing and with that choice, turn all she’d undergone into a source of angst for Peter.
Thank goodness Foxglove Summer is so much better. I don’t think I can understate how much better.
First, the plot is suspenseful but I never felt the child-in-jeopardy element was used for cheap angst, heartstring-tugging or other reader manipulation. Instead it’s dealt in a matter of fact manner.
Second, unlike Broken Homes, which felt episodic and meandering, this book feels cohesive. Each of the earlier books had at least occasional pacing issues, but I didn’t notice any in Foxglove Summer; it’s consistently engaging and entertaining.
Third, Peter’s trademark wit is in place. I laughed and hooted multiple times. Take this scene, which comes after Molly sends Peter a couple of trunks:
I sighed and asked Dominic to give me a hand.
“Bloody hell,” he said when he tried to lift his end. “How long were you planning to stay?”
“It’s the housekeeper,” I said, “She gets carried away.”
Dominic gave me an odd look.
“Housekeeper?”
“Not my housekeeper,” I said as I tried to avoid knocking over a garden gnome. “Our nick has a housekeeper.” Which I decided sounded even weirder.
“Okay,” said Dominic. “Well, Leominster nick’s got vibrating chairs in the rec room.”
While there isn’t quite as much detail about architecture or history in this book as in some of the others, we get interesting details about forestry, geology and geography, and these never feel like info dumps but are woven in when they are pertinent.
Almost all of the many new characters introduced in this book are distinctive, amusing or eerie. I especially liked Hugh Oswald and his beekeeping granddaughter Melissa.
And then there is Beverley. I liked her in Midnight Riot / Rivers of London and I like her even better here, where she and Peter both help each other out. I like the way Peter’s relationship with Beverley develops, too. (And I beg you, please, please, please don’t turn her into some kind of femme fatale in an upcoming book).
This brings me to Leslie. We don’t get much of Leslie in this book, and honestly, I was good with seeing that particular conflict tabled under To Be Continued. There is none of the Faceless Man, which I was also fine with, but I wished we’d gotten a bit more of Nightingale.
As always, Peter himself is my favorite of all the characters – he somehow manages to be a combination of clever and clueless, cheeky and honorable, snarky but a good guy down to the bones. At the climax of this book, he does something pretty amazing, and I wondered how he’d get himself out of the trouble that landed him into.
So yeah, I pretty much adored the book, but I do have a couple more gripes. The first is minor—I thought that Peter should have figured out what was going on with Nicole and Hannah’s phones immediately.
The second was a bigger irritant, and that was the copyediting. I don’t know what happened with this book, but the digital American edition was rife with errors. Here the examples I caught:
“He’d been there since the end of the July.”
“we raided her stupendously large American fridge, which was the size of cryogenic pod”
“There was a scatter of adults sat at the picnic tables”
“I let myself out the front door just in case she’d gone back the car”
“I smacked it hard with the branch, keep my grip loose so that I wouldn’t let go”
“holding up traffic while the kids the cross the road”
“as the Asbo climbed the hill to the top of ridge.”
Additionally, I noticed a continuity error with the numbers of the magic detectors Peter uses later in the book.
It’s a shame to have such an otherwise strong book marred by errors that could have easily been caught, but with those exceptions, I enjoyed myself to pieces reading it. Story-wise, it’s my favorite so far in this series, so despite the copyediting issue, I am recommending it. B+/A-.
Sincerely,
Janine
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Whew! I thought it was just me. The last book left me underwhelmed, and I was about to give up on the series. FOXGLOVE SUMMER brought back the love. Peter being a fish out of water outside of urban London, the banter, the characters, Beverly, Dominic, it was all most enjoyable.
I had a library hardcover, so I didn’t have the issues with the typos. It’s a shame when that happens. It can take you right out of the story.
@Darlene Marshall: I’m glad it’s not just me who loved this book but not the previous one! And yes to the fish out of water aspect–I forgot to mention it.
I admit, I’m still worried about how the Leslie/Faceless Man conflict will go down when Aaronovitch gets around to that. I would love it if Leslie switched sides again, but I’m not holding out much hope.
It’s good to know the typos aren’t in the hardcover. The previous ebooks (some of which I even read as ARCs) had better copyediting than this one (the published version–I bought it on Amazon). I wish the errors in this one had been caught.
I love this series almost too much, and I didn’t have any issues with Leslie in the previous book, but then I’d been expecting her to attempt to try to go undercover with the Faceless Man for a couple books.
Is she, in fact, undercover? Or did she try to go undercover on her own to take the Faceless Man down from the inside? Hard to say. But if she is officially under cover, they’d almost certainly keep the fact from Peter.
(And if you haven’t listened to the Audible version, OMGILOVELOVELOVE Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.)
I did not like this one as much as you, I think, and would have given in a B-. In part because Peter outside London reads like a fish out of water to me, and also the lack of Nightingale and other regulars.
My copy was ordered from Amazon UK, since it was released there first. And the copy editing is terrible in the UK edition. I began dog-earring pages with issues and ending up with dozens of marked pages less than half way through.
I’d also recommend the audible editions of the whole series.
@Random Michelle: That’s an interesting idea, that Leslie is undercover and trying to take down the Faceless Man, whether officially or unofficially. It would be great if that turned out to be the case.
I actually anticipated her switching sides for two books. Ever since she told Peter “What magic do, magic can undo” at the end of Moon Over Soho. It was clear then how much she wanted her face back. So while I would love it if it turns out you’re right and I’m wrong, I’m not that optimistic.
@jmc: I really liked the fish out of water aspect,. Esp. after the last book, it felt like a monotony breaker. I did miss Nightingale, Seawoll and Stephanopoulos, but the presence of Beverley and Dominic made up for it.
Sorry to hear the UK edition also had copyediting issues too. Re. Audible, I’ve heard that from multiple people, actually. I’m not a big audiobook listener but people seem to love the narrator of this series.
Recently discovered the series. Loved the first novel Midnight Riot / Rivers of London. Just finished book 2 but trying to space them out while I wait for the next book in other favorite series (Iron Druid Chronicles, Dresden Files, Mercy Thompson, etc.). Always glad to hear that when a series stumbles that it picks back up. Thanks for the review of Foxglove Summer.
P.S. Anyone have a good tip on where to find a good British slang “translator”? Need one for the Ben Aaronovitch series, but still prefer his consistent British writer’s voice.
@Janine: the narrator of this series is phenomenal. I started listening to audiobooks because of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I liked foxglove summer much better than broken homes, and I also liked whispers under ground better than moon over soho. I don’t miss Leslie at all because Beverly!
I’ve a question related to this. Shortly after I read the book, I read a review of it which said that the story gave rise to a theory about the faceless man’s origin, but in such an obvious way that the reviewer wondered if it was a red herring.
I, of course, had not noticed any obvious hints, so I’m wondering if anyone could enlighten me?
@Elizabeth:
Try this one maybe?ETA: Sorry, I found one earlier but can’t locate that one again. But if you do a search engine search under “English slang dictionary” you’ll get some choices.@Anne V: It seems like a lot of readers had issues with Moon Over Soho (book 2), but I liked it. I agree that Whispers Under Ground (book 3) was better, however.
@Marianne McA: I’m stumped. Maybe someone else will know.
I’m another vote for the terrific audiobook versions. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d never have been able to stick with the series otherwise. There’s a lot of wtfery going on (the whole Faceless Man bit isn’t one I care for) and I often find myself confused but Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s performance is so stellar that I enjoy listening even to the weaker books.
I also enjoyed Foxglove Summer more and the fish out of water aspect really worked for me. I agree about missing Nightingale and other regulars though Beverley and Dominic were great. Janine, I think you described what’s so great about Peter perfectly.
@Marianne McA: And now I’m curious about this, too.
@Lada: I don’t find the books confusing very often and I wonder if print is actually an advantage when it comes to clarity. You can always flip through the previous pages to connect dots in print, but that’s not possible in audio. I almost quit after the last book, though, due to the Leslie / Faceless Man bit. I think the thing that keeps me reading is Peter’s character and the humor and wit in the writing.
@Janine
It was something Leslie said in an earlier book (and I cannot remember what (now I’m going to have to go look (and that will almost certainly mean I’ll end up rereading ALL the books))) that made me think she would try to go undercover.
I have to say, perhaps he’s done a better job than we initially thought, since we have such differing opinions of her motives! ;)
I should SO not be doing this at work, but curiosity was killing me. :)
Broken Homes, two different sections.
“It means we’ve got something the Faceless Man’s going to really want for himself,” I said. “In other words, sir,” said Lesley, “bait.”
and then later this
At breakfast the next morning Lesley pitched her plan for using the weird way of the Sons of Weyland and the staffs they made to lure out the Faceless Man.
…
That might be enough to draw the Faceless Man out— although I think it might be a bit of a long-term strategy.”
I think it caught my attention when I was listening to it, rather than reading it.
@Random Michelle: Ah. I read that differently. Because I was expecting Leslie to change allegiances to the Faceless Man’s side at some point (I started expecting it after the end of book two) I read that whole “draw the Faceless Man out with a staff” proposal as a ruse. I think she wanted to meet with the Faceless Man so she could join in with him and get her face back, and this was her way to arrange that meeting without drawing suspicion from Peter and Nightingale.
I can see that.
But I chose to believe in the devious Leslie. ;)
Much like I was going to hate JK Rowling FOREVER if she’d made Snape truly evil. :D
@Random Michelle: I very much hope you’re right. I would love it if your theory is proven true.
Sold – I am a book behind but may just skip to this one. Thanks.
@Sirius: I didn’t realize you read (or listened to) this series! We should do a joint review next time!