Saturday, November 26, 2016

Melanie's Week in Review - November 26, 2016




Hello. Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends and readers. Feel free to post me a piece of pumpkin pie. I did read two excellent books this week. So what did I read?

I was really excited when I had my request for The Hanging Tree approved by the publisher on NetGalley. This is the 6th book in the Peter Grant / Rivers of London series. I love Aaronovitch's funny but at the same time very tense tale of Peter Grant, the cop and apprentice sorcerer.

Peter had been enjoying a relatively normal life with his girlfriend who just happens to be an immortal river goddess and his job as an investigator in a special wing of the police that deal with all things supernatural. When Peter gets a call to investigate the death of a teenager due to a drug overdose he doesn't see the magical connection ....well at first. Its not long before Peter is on the trail of his arch nemesis the Faceless Man and his former colleague who joined the dark side, Lesley.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Hanging Tree. While I have loved this series the last two books have been very dark. I went from regular bouts of lol'ing to barely cracking a smirk. I felt that Aaronvitch got the balance between humour and the darker side of the plot development a bit more even this time. Peter's inner musings, especially in relation to Nightingale and the Folly were especially humorous. The scenes with Lesley were super tense and I kept thinking 'how could you'. Aaronovitch does an admirable job of describing Peter's London. I especially like the history of the various rivers, however, his facts aren't completely accurate (specially about Queen Mary a college within the University of London but that is just me being picky because I used to work there).

Overall this is an excellent instalment and I highly recommend it if you are a fan of the series.



Book two was another book from the finalists of the SPFBO - Fionn: Defence of Ráth Bládhma by Brian O'Sullivan. We are providing joint reviews of all the finalists so I am afraid you are going to have to wait to hear what I thought. I will leave you to look at the cover instead.



That is it for me this week. I hope you have a good one. I am jetting off for a few days in Berlin (Germany) so I won't be writing a WIR next week. Hopefully, I will have lots to tell you about in my next one. Until then Happy Reading.





The Hanging Tree
Rivers of London 6
DAW, January 31, 2017
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 336 pages

Where the Marble Arch stands today in London was once the Tyburn gallows—also known as The Hanging Tree. The walk toward those gallows along Oxford Street and past the Mayfair mansions has a bloody and haunted history as the last trip of the condemned. Some things never change. For both blood and ghosts have returned to those mansions of the super-rich. And it’s up to Peter Grant—England’s last wizard and the Metropolitan Police’s reluctant investigator of all things supernatural—to get to the bottom of the sinister doings.

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