Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection, Audio Edition

Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection (2020) Ben Aaronovitch narrated by: the author, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Ben Elliot, Felix Grainger, Sam Peter Jackson, Alex Kingston, Shvorne Marks, and Penelope Rawlins

PART ONE: THE PETER GRANT STORIES
The Home Crowd Advantage
The Domestic
The Cockpit
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Granny
King of The Rats
A Rare Book of Cunning Device
PART TWO: THE OTHERS’ STORIES
A Dedicated Follower of Fashion
Favourite Uncle
Vanessa Sommer’s Other Christmas List
Three Rivers, Two Husbands and a Baby
Moment One: London September 1966
Moment Two: Reynolds— Florence, Az. 2014
Moment Three: Tobias Winter— Meckenheim 2012

‘I’m interested in history,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened.’

‘Why would a young man like you be interested in history?’

‘So I can avoid repeating it.’

I’ve always found Toby a pretty reliable magic detector. I’ve actually done controlled laboratory experiments that indicate that he can detect magical activity up to ten metres away, although false positives can be generated by cats, other dogs and the remote possibility of a sausage.

‘Tell me that wasn’t a spider?’ said Ms Winstanley in a deceptively calm tone.

‘Can’t have been,’ I said.

‘Thank god for that,’ she said. ‘Can’t stand spiders.’

‘It was too big,’ I said. ‘You can’t scale an exoskeleton up that far.’ The inverse square law can be such a comfort sometimes. Plus I definitely remembered something about gas diffusion and box lungs or something like that.

I looked up to find that the boy had dug a worm out of the soil and was holding it up to show us. Once he was sure he had our attention he dangled the worm over his open mouth and made as if to eat it.

I’m from a big country family with uncounted nieces and nephews who I’ve been ‘volunteered’ to babysit over the years so I know a teasing bluff when I see it, but Victor was an only child.

‘Don’t eat that,’ he said and scrambled down the bank and plucked the worm out of the boy’s hands. ‘We need those to maintain the soil matrix.’

Publisher: Tantor Audio
Rating: 8.5/10

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