{"id":24072,"date":"2024-11-10T19:40:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T00:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=24072"},"modified":"2025-10-01T18:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T22:46:09","slug":"the-masquerades-of-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24072","title":{"rendered":"The Masquerades of Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Masquerades of Spring<\/em><\/a> (2024) Ben Aaronovitch<\/a> (Rivers of London)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Set in New York City in 1926<\/p>\n

This novella is everything.<\/p>\n

It’s NYC during the jazz age.<\/p>\n

Prohibition, that bizarre aberration of the American spirit, could be dashed confusing to someone raised in the free and easy metrop of old London.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Nightingale has come to see out a musical instrument, imposing upon his schoolmate Gus.<\/p>\n

This is Nightingale before the war–before Ettersberg. <\/p>\n

I took a quick look over the parapet to make sure Nightingale hadn\u2019t happened to anyone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the story is told by Gus, who is perhaps not quite so bright but very sweet.<\/p>\n

Later, when I told Lucy about the love that dare not speak its name, he held me close and said that it may not speak its name, \u201cBut it sure as shit sings the blues.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there is so very much jazz.<\/p>\n

Pretty soon we were having a friendly disagreement about whether Fats Waller owed anything to James P. Johnson, with Lloyd having the unfair advantage of being able to make his points by playing quotations on the ivories.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(T)he show, which was livened up considerably by a pair of male tap dancers who so astonished with their fluid dexterity that it was almost a relief when the chorus girls joined them and they had to slow down so the ladies could keep up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cHave you heard Gladys Bentley yet?\u201d he asked. <\/p>\n

I said I had not, which only made the smile wider. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s time we blow this scene,\u201d he said, and half an hour later we were downstairs at a speakeasy on 133rd Street, breathing smoke, drinking terrible hooch and listening to a young coloured girl in a bow tie and short Eton jacket sing and play the piano all the way to morning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Ben Aaronovitch did a deep dive into the queer underground of the time.<\/p>\n

The rules of the ball were simple: if you came as a lady then you could only dance with a gentlemen, and vice versa.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As expected, he doesn’t shy away from the racism of the time.<\/p>\n

As Amelia explained it to me, because the landlords knew that the coloured folk couldn\u2019t get lodgings in the white neighbourhoods, they could charge more than twice the normal rent. Since coloured folk mostly got paid half of what a white worker got, people in Harlem were nearly always short on the rent. To bridge the gap, the good citizens of Harlem had taken to holding rent parties<\/a> in which private homes were turned into temporary nightclubs, at 25 cents per guest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a marvelous story, and the icing on the cake is that Nightingale outs himself as ace. (Not that the term was used then.)<\/p>\n

I love it and I wanted to immediately sit back down and start reading again.<\/p>\n

Cover map image by Stephen Walter. Title lettering by Patrick Knowles. Interior art Copyright by Giles Meakin<\/p>\n

Characters<\/strong>: Augustus Berrycloth-Young, Lucien Gibbs, Thomas Nightingale, Maximillian Beauregard, Sergeant Bracknel, Laurence Ellwood, Gladys Bentley, David Edwards, Purlie Edwards, Mark Harper, Lloyd Beaumont, Mr. Steven Baker III, Cocoa\/Amelia, Johnny Black, Old Fat Sam Milovic, Charles Jaeger, Mr. Clydesdale, Madame Zaza, A\u2019Lelia Walker the Queen of Joy, David Mellenby, Harry Walter, Maurelle, Oriande<\/p>\n

Publisher: Subterranean Press<\/p>\n

Rating: 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Masquerades of Spring (2024) Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London) Set in New York City in 1926 This novella is everything. It’s NYC during the jazz age. Prohibition, that bizarre aberration of the American spirit, could be dashed confusing to someone raised in the free and easy metrop of old London. And Nightingale has come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,30,292,204,33,8,196,42,148,34],"tags":[57,546,544,872,58],"class_list":["post-24072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-10","category-british","category-ebook","category-good","category-historical","category-mystery","category-novella","category-police","category-queer","category-urban-fantasy","tag-ben-aaronovitch","tag-interwar-period","tag-mm","tag-prohibition","tag-rivers-of-london"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-6gg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24410,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24410","url_meta":{"origin":24072,"position":0},"title":"The Masquerades of Spring, Audio Book","author":"Michelle","date":"April 12, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Masquerades of Spring, Audiobook (2024) Ben Aaronovitch narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (Rivers of London) Set in New York City in 1926 I do love Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. But most of his American accents are just the slightest bit off and not quite right. Otherwise, I utterly adore everything about this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Masquerades of Spring","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Masquerades-of-Spring.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25585,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/25585","url_meta":{"origin":24072,"position":1},"title":"The Masquerades of Spring, Audio Book","author":"Michelle","date":"December 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Masquerades of Spring, Audio Book (2024) Ben Aaronovitch narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (Rivers of London) Set in New York City in 1926 (B)ecause the landlords knew that the coloured folk couldn\u2019t get lodgings in the white neighbourhoods, they could charge more than twice the normal rent. Since coloured folk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Masquerades of Spring","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Masquerades-of-Spring-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11776,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11776","url_meta":{"origin":24072,"position":2},"title":"Rivers of London Volume 7: Action at a Distance","author":"Michelle","date":"March 17, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Rivers of London Vol. 7: Action at a Distance (2018) Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel, Brian Williamson Set in 2016. When these comics first started, I think that Ben Aaronovitch had a lot of extra material he couldn't fit in the books. I think that he's probably used up that material,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Action-at-a-Distance.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24355,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24355","url_meta":{"origin":24072,"position":3},"title":"Rivers of London: Here Be Dragons","author":"Michelle","date":"March 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Rivers of London: Here Be Dragons (2024) Ben Aaronovitch, James Swallow and Andrew Cartmel I give up. I thought it was the story lines about Bev's sisters I didn't care for. That wasn't it. Or the rendings of Peter and Nightingale that made them look anorexic and over-muscled at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"Here Be Dragons","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/RoL-Here-Be-Dragons-1-198x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14128,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/14128","url_meta":{"origin":24072,"position":4},"title":"What Abigail Did That Summer","author":"Michelle","date":"March 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"What Abigail Did That Summer (2021) Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London) Set concurrently with Foxglove Summer. Abigail Kamara learned discovered what magic is, and now that she knows, she'll do anything to learn it--including taking and mastering Latin. If you've read the Rivers of London books, you already know just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"What Abigail Did That Summer","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/What-Abigail-Did-That-Summer.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11293,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11293","url_meta":{"origin":24072,"position":5},"title":"Broken Homes, Audio Book","author":"Michelle","date":"December 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Broken Homes, Audio Version (2013) Ben Aaronovitch narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith First, we meet Varvara Sidorovna. \u201cNochnye Koldunyi,\u201d said Nightingale. \u201cA Night Witch.\u201d \u201cIs that like a person or another thing?\u201d asked Lesley. \u201cLike Peter\u2019s Pale Lady?\u201d \u201cA type of Russian practitioner,\u201d said Nightingale. \u201cRecruited during the war, the training\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "10\/10"","block_context":{"text":"10\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/10-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/broken-homes.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}