Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London) Mass Market Paperback – October 29, 2019

The author did a great job keeping all of the story details moving forward. Listening, pretty much at the same time on Audible. Narrator is very good.Few minor complaint not with mentioning

After finishing The Hanging Tree, I was worried that the Rivers of London series was falling into the escalation trap that tends to ensnare long-running novel and TV series. This trap is sprung when an author believes he has to heighten the threats in order to keep the readers interested. They do this by making the plot a fight against a "Big Bad", some horrible menace who threatens to destroy everything. And the scope of the "everything" that is threatened keeps growing. Thus we get Buffy repeatedly saving the world, or, in the most egregious example, The Doctor saving the entire universe once a week, typically against a comically unconvincing Dalek threat. (Before he was a novelist, Ben Aaronovitch wrote TV scripts, and Doctor Who was one of the shows he wrote for.) Of course, this never works. The audience just yawns (or at least I do).Fortunately, Rivers of London has not escalated to that extent. The Big Bad for some time has been The Faceless Man. In The Hanging Tree The Faceless Man was exposed as one Martin Chorley, a sorcerer powerful enough to be treated with respect by Nightingale. However, at the very end of The Hanging Tree we learn that Chorley is probably the cat's paw of an even more dangerous entity, Punch (whom we actually encountered in Book 1) Punch is by way of being the malevolent spirit of London. We are not yet up to worrying about the end of the universe, but the destruction of London is certainly on the table.So, for me, that was the main question going in. I was not really worried that Aaronovitch would destroy his beloved London. I was worried, however, that in the course of coping with Punch Peter would provoke the attention of something yet more dangerous, and down Escalation Road we would go.Of course I'm not gonna tell you whether that happens.At the start of Lies Sleeping we learn that Abigail is now fifteen and has been sworn in as an Apprentice at the Folly. Since Abigail was 13 when first we heard of her, some time has passed. In addition, the hunt for Chorley has grown. The Folly is aided by a team of regular cops, including old friends Guleed, Seawoll, and Stephanopoulos.And so we're off! The game's afoot, and Peter is the star. Peter is no longer just rolling with the punches. Although he's no Nightingale, he's become a much more skillful and able sorcerer, with a talent for throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of any operation he is aimed at. What's more, he is, as he has consistently been, brave, clever, and kind. Those qualities make him an effective policeman.What really made the book for me was one minor character who appears fairly late. She gives the story a sense of higher mystery -- not mystery in the sense of whodunit, but mystery in the deeper sense of a hidden truth about the way things are. She provokes this observation from Nightingale,“Here’s a comforting thought for you, Peter,” he said. “However long you may live, the world will never lose its ability to surprise you with its beauty.”I doubt most readers will consider her as important as I did.

Peter Grant and the London police force chase the Faceless Man and his new apprentice Lesley Mae who now has multiple faces. The book culminates on the London Bridge where the two are joined by the infamous Mr. Punch.As always exciting and fun. I highly recommend Americans reading it as an ebook so getting definitions of obscure slang and Police terminology is easier.

This book was exhausting with car chases, gun fights, kidnaping, magical duels, and brief interludes of love and art. I don’t remember a kitchen sink, but there might have been one or more of those thrown in, too. Yet somehow it all came together in the end and even made enough sense to keep me reading long into the night.

Peter is in the thick of it again in this seventh installation. He and Bev are still together, Nightingale is mostly off screen doing his magicks, and Abigail is now a de facto student at the folly.Peter's charm is in his kind of no-nonsense, no ego-driven goals that include a willingness to put himself in danger or sit back and act the low-key fool as the situation demands. I love his deferment to Bev, the river goddess he's still dating, his mother, his healthy respect for friend-turned-antagonist Lesley, and the River Tyburn.Here, Lesley comes in again helping Martin Chorley (FAceless man #2, things do get a little confusing unless you've read prior installments) with a mysterious plan that involves bells, King Arthur, a surprise past enemy, lots of tailing bad guys around London, and some explosions.Also another fae.I've never read a book so quickly that was mostly the "boring" side of police work. Peter spends a lot of time waiting around, especially when he gets stuck in an oubliette. Somehow Aaronovitch makes those boring parts interesting because we get Peter's take on the situation, as well as his psychological efforts to get free. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of Police and UK slang that sometimes threw me, but mostly watching Peter do his low-key but important stuff surrounded by competent and loving folks is great.There's more development in this one about the nature of genus loci (the Rivers), ghosts, and Abigail's talking foxes. And there's a wonderful surprise at the end.I really like reading this series when I can't handle emotional trauma but still want emotional and cultural depth. Can't wait for the next one!

So it's out, and I won't give spoilers. But rest assured those sitting on the fence after being burned by preordering what turned out to be a 9-chapter novella last time, that this is full size. There are 34 chapters. It's over an inch thick, and the kindle version is as good as the book.The text flows, there's all the descriptive narrative we know and love, and it's action from the off. The author does a good job of trying to bring readers up to speed if they've not fully followed everything to date, and there are lots of nice nods (in passing) to the graphic novels but not in such a way that they are essential reading to follow this book.So far I'm 5 chapters in (devoured in 45 minute train journey) so it won't last me too long, but the pace is good, and I think I get where the plot might be heading. And if it is, then I like it.I'll add more when I'm further through it, but for now - definitely worth getting.Oh, and Amazon, shame on you for pushing back the delivery date to 20th Nov. I got my hardcopy on the high street on the 14th. And it was signed by the author. Just saying.

Review Rivers of London 7 Lies SleepingTake care SPOILERS in this. I own all the other “Rivers of London” Books love them all. L have read and re-read them all several times picking up on clever little bits that I missed on previous readings. I have been insisting that my non fantasy fan friends read them too as the writing was so witty and so enjoyable. Like all fans I have been waiting for the 7th book to arrive and I read it immediately that it arrived on my kindle. I'm afraid that I was a bit disappointed. Not because it was terrible but because one of my major sources of enjoyment is the writing style and the brilliant humour with Peters asides. To use a cliché I do laugh out loud. This book however dragged for me. It was very plot focussed at the expense of good writing and to me the enjoyment and the lightness of touch was missing. All the other books I read in one sitting then read again straight away. In this book he seemed determined to get to the end of the plot and ignored the writing. It dragged and I had to force myself to read it to the end. There were some good ideas I like foxglove and Beverley’s comment should lead to an interesting next book but the solution to the faceless man a huge anti-climax …The long, long build up in previous books and in this book to be resolved in that way!! !! I felt that he had run out of ideas and wanted him out of the way. In which case why didn’t he send him off to fairyland or something vague to continue when he had come up with an appropriate solution?There have been a lot of complaints about short length of The Last Station but on balance I preferred it to Lies Sleeping it was more authentic Aaronovitch and a much more enjoyable read.You have to buy this book if you are a fan to find out what happens next and I will buy the Book 8 too but not with the keen same anticipation.

Sometimes a great idea just runs out of steam, and such is the case with this novel. The heady mix of river demigods, fairies and magic woven around of core of modern city policing has proved a winner up until now, but this book suborns the supernatural to the natural – great for a reality show, but a fantasy novel? You get the impression that the success of the preceding six books dictated the commercial lure of a seventh, but it seems a somewhat half-hearted attempt. The pace is uneven, the writing mundane and, frankly, not a lot happens in it - if you can judge a book by how long a resume of it would be, this one would run to a page at most. For example, 3 chapters are devoted to the rather dull hero being imprisoned in a rather dull pit with a rather dull fae companion. And really, that’s the essence of the book. Too many words devoted to irrelevances which add nothing to the story (like the minutiae of police protocols), topics bafflingly introduced with no preamble (eg something to do with Chinatown crops up in the final chapter with no introduction and no perceivable relevance to the story), and, all in all, it’s just …. rather dull.

I love these books. The characters and stories are great.However, who edited this?! There are so many non-sentences and typos. This is pretty frustrating when you've spent £10 on it, and you can get better editing on someone's self-published trash novel.

The Rivers of London series is an entertaining take on the 'mythical London' genre - other examples include the 'Shadow Police' books and the Alex Verus novels. Overall the 'Rivers' series is great fun - conjuring an array of characters that bring to life London's landmark rivers and its history.This latest offering is OK but a bit rambling and with plot twists that seem to have no logic. I don't want to give the plot away but the key final confrontation has a dream sequence and a death without any logic - things happen for no obvious reason. Additionally, the text seems to have been padded out with lots of pointless detail - presumably trying to flesh out the characters but with far more descriptions of domestic life than anyone needs.Worth a read if you've read the previous books but don't expect a masterpiece.