★★★★☆ Stone and Sky, by Ben Aaronovitch
A mass migration from London to Aberdeen
Stone and Sky
Ben Aaronovitch
A mass migration from London to Aberdeen
IT ALL STARTED when Dr. Brian Robertson, retired GP, enthusiastic amateur ecologist and self-confessed cryptid aficionado, stumbled over a dead sheep a few kilometers west of the town of Mintlaw, Aberdeenshire.
Brian contacts his old friend Dr Walid about his strange discovery, and before long a migration of a dozen Folly-associated folks is camped out in Brian's garden. You're probably wondering, given the small size of the Folly's payroll, how we get up to a dozen. Well, Nightingale decides that it is time to take his apprentice Abigail Kamara out into the field to broaden her experience. Peter and Bev decide to come along as a holiday. The twins, now two years old, of course come along. And Peter's mother, who has expansive ideas of Family, attaches herself to the excursion. She brings Peter's father along. And since Peter's father is now performing again, his band, Lord Grant's Irregulars, comes with to do a few shows in the Aberdeen area, accompanied by their now-manager Zach Taylor. I believe that adds up to 13 persons. Sadly, Molly and Foxglove remain in London.
Stone and Sky is the tenth full-length novel in Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series. Novel nine, Amongst Our Weapons, ended with Nightingale loosing a bombshell -- he intends to retire, leaving Peter in charge of the Folly. Nightingale is not gone yet, but Peter, with the weight of incipient professional responsibility on him, not to mention domestic responsibility in the form of a wife and two children, is ever so slightly more subdued than in past books.
Abigail, in contrast, is not in the least subdued. She seems a bit matured, in the sense that she doesn't think of "Olds" with the unbridled contempt of her earlier effusions. She clearly respects Nightingale and even, somewhat surreptitiously, Peter and Bev. Or maybe she IS a bit subdued. Abigail is carrying a weight -- her brother Paul died of the chronic illness his family has been living with for all his years.
Of course, the vacation becomes less relaxing when the local police involve Peter in the investigation of a murder and a missing person, both cases involving "weird bollocks," of the sort that the Folly exists to deal with.
Most of the story is told in chapters whose point-of-view alternates between Peter and Abigail. There's a nice contrast here. Peter is more staid and more concerned with police procedural details. And architecture, of course. (To summarize, Aberdeen is built of granite.) Abigail is much less restrained.
I enjoyed this addition to the Rivers of London series. It broadened and advanced the development of Peter and Abigail's characters.