Broken Homes

Broken Homes (2014) Ben Aaronovitch

This is the fourth Rivers of London book, in which we find Peter Grant–son of a jazz man and an immigrant from Sierra Leon–becoming comfortable in his position at constable and apprentice magician. That’s not a common or even popular status in the London Force.

His fellow apprentice, Lesley, is determined to become a magician and regain her status on the force, but more importantly, to recover her face, which had been destroyed by magic.

I love Peter’s voice.

It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.

“You can’t go wrong,” he said, “by searching anyone who engages you in conversation.” On the basis that nobody willingly engages the police in conversation unless they’re trying to deflect attention from something. But he did warn us to make an exception for tourists, because London needed the foreign currency.

I love his cynical attitude.

I also love Peter’s scientific approach to magic:

I’d love to stick some high vestigia material into a mass spectrometer, but first I’d have to get myself a mass spectrometer and then I’d have to learn enough physics to interpret the bloody results.

But aside from that, I really just enjoyed the story telling. There is a major fight science that was so descriptive I bookmarked the whole thing to read again. (Note: during this fight, Peter spends most of the time hiding behind a Land Rover. One of the many things I like about Peter.)

We also meet a fantastic new character–a Russian woman who fought in WWII. The group she belonged to, the Night Witches, is a lovely parallel to Russian women who fought bombers in WWII (Lilia Litvyak being the most famous example.)

“If you’re afraid of wolves,” said Varvara Sidorovna, “don’t go to the woods.”

I really like this story. It’s got magic, but it’s also got the day-to-day stuff that makes what Peter does seem real.

Theoretically, you could start here, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The end of the story is far more devastating if you’ve been reading from the beginning.
Rating: 8.5/10

Published by DAW

 
 

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