I first met Peter Grant about a week ago where he met a ghost, Inspector Nightingale, an evil revenant and the merry crew of London police in Midnight Riot (see review here). Peter and I hit it off big time and renewed our friendship in Moon over Soho (review here), now we are once again traipsing through London in Whispers Underground.
Peter is one of those characters you empathize with – you really feel like you are right with him solving crimes, studying Latin, practicing magic and trying to avoid major faux pas with the police force such as not setting Covent Garden on fire. The only problem is that empathizing with Peter in Whispers Underground means you are wading through London sewers right alongside. Yuck!
I’ve usually found that the second book in a series is the weakest, but this series is the exception. I liked Moon Over Soho a lot and Whispers Underground lost a little of the zany action and fast thinking. Given the high 5 stars I gave Moon, all that means is that Whispers slipped to oh, maybe a 4.
Why was Whispers was less satisfying?
Peter was in plenty of danger in Whispers (and the two earlier books) but the actual danger moments, getting shot and buried alive, didn’t feel real. Peter created a shield that protected from the bullets and hallucinated during the burial. Unless Aaronovitch revisits his hallucination in later books the several pages spent visiting with the dream line Mr. Tyburn seemed like a side trip that went nowhere.
There were a couple off tune plot elements, like the visits with Albert Woodville-Gentle. It felt like Aaronovitch originally planned to build more on the Ethically Challenged Magician but took a wrong turn. Instead he was a throwaway character that didn’t add anything to the plot.
The Lost Tribe of Navvies (tunnel builders from the 1800s who decided to stay underground) made no sense whatsoever. We never learned why they decided to stay underground for 150 years. Peter and Leslie were smart enough to realize there was no solution for the tunnel dwellers; if they were brought into the open the massive British social services and social requirements would descend and make their lives miserable. We didn’t get resolution here.
The book had its fun moments, especially when Peter decides to go ceramic hunting and has to explain himself to the pragmatic Stephanopoulos. New minor character Zach Palmer is a shameless grifter that we didn’t get to do much with and I hope we meet up again with FBI agent Reynolds.
Overall I’d give this 4 stars, very good but not quite the fun, clever novel we enjoyed in the first two Peter Grant.
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