Lies Sleeping, Audio Edition

Lies Sleeping, Audio Edition (2018) Ben Aaronovitch narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (Rivers of London)

I picked up a lot I missed the first time around. I remember it being late, and needing to go to bed, but I just need to know more….

So, I caught a lot this time.

This is set in 2014, because the books are slower than real time.

There is now a push to find and arrest The Faceless Man. It’s pulled in not just Guleed, but also Sewoll and Stephanopolous but also some regulars.

First, Peter is Peter.

“Did it work?”

“I think so.”

“Can you teach me?”

She laughed. “Michael specifically said I wasn’t allowed to. No matter what you said.”

“Why not?”

“Because Nightingale called him up and told him to refuse if you asked.”

“Did he say why?”

“Because you should master at least one tradition before you move on to the next,” said Nightingale, coming up the corridor.

Second, a lot happens in this book including the resolution of the Faceless Man’s story arc. Honestly, this book ended in such a way that I would have been ok had the series ended here.

I wouldn’t have liked it, but I would have been fine with the resolution of many arcs.

And I adore the many questions that Peter asks, that I also want to know the answer to.

I wondered if perhaps there was an upper limit to the capacity of the brain to retain memory. Perhaps their surplus memories manifested externally; perhaps that was the function of those strange god-ghosts like Sir William of Tyburn. It would also suggest that the Genii Locorum retained the same organic brain that the rest of us made do with.

And I want to note again how I adore the variety of characters in the book.

Waiting for us at the top was a small Vietnamese woman in a City of London Police uniform with SC tags denoting that she was a special constable. This was Geneviève Nguy?n, who had attended the Sorbonne.

And how he makes a point to describe every white character as such. There is absolutely no defaulting to white here. It’s marvelous.

Another thing I noted is that everyone goes through a lot here–and at least one secondary character buckles under the pressure, and even Peter has issues.

So funny that I started laughing uncontrollably. When I couldn’t stop myself I clamped my hand over my mouth and went outside. The thing about having a stress reaction is that, even when you know you’re having a stress reaction, that knowledge doesn’t seem to do you any good.

Peter has gone through a LOT in recent years, and it be strange if he didn’t reach his breaking point (like he did talking to Beverley about Lesley).

Seawoll turned his attention back to me— because obviously I’m cursed.

“I want you to include a mental health component in your stage two discussion document,” he said. “I want it incorporated into the Falcon risk assessment matrix.”

But mostly, I loved the snark.

More takeaway, so I was definitely within range of a Chinese and kebab place— which narrowed my location down, I calculated, to somewhere in the UK.

Note: It is after this book that we no longer get a Peter Grant novel every year. We get comics and short stories, and side tales, but not much Peter. And I am great with that, because I want a happy author who enjoys writing, rather than a stressed and miserable author who feels required to write his characters.

Publisher: DAW

Rating: 8.5/10

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