The Furthest Station, Audio Edition

The Furthest Station, Audio Edition (2017) Ben Aaronovitch narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

This actually comes after The Hanging Tree, but I ended up reading it prior, and it didn’t matter.

This is a novella that features Abigail as much as it does Peter, which I really enjoyed, since I love little bits, like this conversation between Peter and Abigail.

…Boudicca’s burial site at Kings Cross— remember that?”

We’d done it as a field trip— Platform 10 at Kings Cross, which was reputedly the last resting place of the woad-wearing warrior woman. We hadn’t found anything, but it had led to a lively discussion about the practicalities of attaching blades to the wheels of your chariot. We got so carried away that a posh middle-aged white woman, no doubt waiting for a train, congratulated me on being an excellent father and for fostering an interest in British history in my daughter.

“Well done you,” she’d said.

Plus we get to spend more time with Jaget on the trains.

Fish and chip night was a Kumar family tradition that dated back to when Jaget was courting his wife and they used to meet in the last white English-owned fish and chip shop in Wembley on the basis that none of their relatives would go in there.

And I also adore the glimpses into what dealing with Peter is like for other people.

Nightingale has always been reluctant to let me loose on the library and I must have frowned or something because he went on—“ My worry with you, Peter, is not what you would learn but, should you go into the library, you might never emerge again. Abigail can, at least, be lured out with the promise of the pictures Jaget took.”

I also love the little side bit about the little godlet.

They let their neighbours assume that something vaguely Daily Mail-ish had happened to the parents— drug addiction, mental breakdown, something like that, and got on with the practical side of raising a lively young boy.

This would have to be sorted out, but not this afternoon.

“I’m not promising anything,” I said. “But I’ll see if I can arrange some assistance.”

They both looked stricken. Not social services, they said. I had considered them, but what had Buckingham Social Services ever done to me that I was going to inflict a cheeky little godlet on them?

It’s a fun little story, and quite delightful.

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group Limited
Rating: 9/10

• Browse the archives:
  
• The Hanging Tree, Audio Edition » »
• « « Inspector Hobbes and the Blood