Been a while! I can’t believe that we are at now ten books into the Rivers of London series. This is another one of those urban fantasy-slash-detective series that I’ve been enjoying over the years. And like some of the others, Rivers of London has 1) experienced a bit of a gap between novels (three years) and 2) reached a bit of a pivotal point in the over-reaching narrative.
Let’s get the biggest thing out of the way first: Stone and Sky is a Rivers of London novel that is not set in London. This time around, the action has shifted temporarily to Scotland. This isn’t entirely unwelcome; one of my favorite novels in the series so far—Foxglove Summer—was also rather divorced from the city, shall we say.
The scenario is a little bit contrived, but Stone and Sky sees Peter Grant traveling to Aberdeen, taking the bulk of his family with him. There has been a bit of a time-skip since the previous novel, Amongst Our Weapons, as his two little girls are now rather active toddlers. Coming along for the ride is his cousin Abigail, who, surprisingly to me, serves as the second point of view for the novel. While some of the novellas and short stories have explored non-Peter perspectives before, this is the first time this has happened in one of the main novels. She’s matured a lot since we last saw her in the novella What Abigail Did That Summer, but her family has undergone a lot of heartbreak since then as well.
So why is the fam all taking a trip to Aberdeen? Ostensibly, it’s for a holiday, but there’s been some concerning sheep deaths nearby… No really. We are talking some odd sheep deaths. Rumor has it that they were caused by a big cat—but a panther? In Scotland?* Abigail and Nightingale suspect something supernatural and decide to investigate. But it’s Bev who suspects something like this would make a great holiday. Hence, the circus parade.
Peter teams up with local law enforcement, much like he did in Foxglove Summer, and Abigail starts reaching out to the local foxes. Both get more than they bargained for—Abigail meets a mysterious young woman, and Peter gets a murder investigation. With gills.
Reckon Peter got the short straw there.
This book was a bit of an odd one for me. I really liked the shift in location to Scotland and the exploration of its folklore. And after a bit of an adjustment period, I was happy to continue switching between the two different narratives. But the book was oddly slow to get rolling; sorry if I’m not a fan of toddler antics or other day-to-day family matters. And it was really hard to work out whether Aaronovitch was writing about events that have happened in the two-years-in-story that we’ve not been filled in on yet, or if he was referencing things from other Rivers of London works that I had not gotten around to reading? I haven’t caught up will all the novellas, and I have barely touched the graphic novels. So I was often little lost.
In addition to that, I’m really not sure where the series is going at this point. I’ll white out the following for anyone who hasn’t gotten this far yet. I’ll also be adding a bit of mild speculation, so fair warning: So the Faceless Man arc finished a few books ago, False Value seemed like a stand alone and Amongst Our Weapons tied up some things with Leslie. What are we doing here?
There are a lot of loose ends in the series that need addressing, and most are not mentioned In this novel. I am really hoping they’re not being left behind to be addressed in the novellas/stories/graphic novels, as I’m not a fan of doing a MCU-style chase up. It’s exhausting. But one theme I have noticed so far post-Faceless Man is that more and more people outside of the UK are taking note of Nightingale and The Folly. And we’ve now met two sets of rich, foreign, dickheads trying to exploit the supernatural for profit… That could be what’s being set up here. Maybe that’s the next arc.
The last third of the book is a cracker though. And I am extremely fond of the foxes; they are delightful. I think one of the biggest laughs I got is one of the vixens confessing to Abigail that she’s been having some… sinful thoughts about Nightingale. One, that’s her teacher and you’re telling her that! And two? get in line!
This was an enjoyable enough addition to the series, but not quite at the level of either Amongst Our Weapons or Foxglove Summer. Still, if anyone else gets to this book in the series and has some ideas as to where they might be heading next, please share them.
For cbr17bingo, this is Work. Even when he is on holiday, Peter is still trying to do his job.