Anna’s Reviews > Rivers of London > Status Update

The conflict between Mother and Father Thames, different spirits of one river, had so much promise, but it goes nowhere and has no influence on the rest of the story aside from introducing Beverly and her sisters. After the initial skirmish, it looks like things are ready to turn into a full-out war, but then both sides do nothing and wait patiently for months, until the conflict is resolved in the very last chapter.

The story doesn’t pull any punches, and even main characters don’t possess any plot armor. Nightingale is seriously wounded and almost dies, and one of Peter’s friends is turned into the villain’s puppet, and it’s a miracle that they survive till the end of the book – and we still don’t know what this possession would cost them in the long run.

The resolution gives us more questions than answers. If Nicholas was the villain from the very start, what was he trying to achieve by pretending to be someone else? It would’ve made sense if he tried to influence Peter’s investigation and give him a false trail to follow, but he didn’t, aside from luring him into a trap once. And how could a ghost possess a badge that’s a hundred years younger than him?

Toby is a true sunshine that brightens the book immensely, and I adore how he went from being living evidence to being adopted as the local ghost hunting dog. I don’t know what I would do if something happens to him, and I worry that something may happen, since Peter keeps mentioning how Toby has difficulty walking. What if he’s somehow affected by Punch’s magic or something?

Ironically, Leslie was right and the heroes have to deal not with a lone vengeful ghost, but with a spirit of chaos and destruction itself, with manifestation of hatred and xenophoby and thirst for violence. What leads us to an awesome scene where Peter realizes that Punch is trying to mess with his head and simply tells him to shut up and f**k off.

The author definitely knows the inner workings of London police, including their protocols, inner regulations and hierarchy between different departments, and that’s not just stuff you’ll learn from crime TV shows – either he did a thorough research or he speaks from experience. Either way, I respect such attention to details.

When Peter had first suggested that the villain is mind-controlling the victims to force them to kill each other, Nightingale stated that casting such spells is nearly impossible for a human mage. Yet now lady Tyburn easily gets into Peter’s head and forces him to come to her! Yes, Ty is not human but a manifestation of a river spirit, so she obeys different rules, but it’s disturbing how much power she wields.

The plot is well-paced from the PoV of a reader, but in-story, things are going really slowly. The first murder happens in February, and then the killings continue till May when the plot culminates, and while Nightingale and Peter were looking for the culprit the whole time, I still got an impression that it wasn’t their main priority, and they mostly just waited for the next death to happen to pick up the trace.

I love that Peter has a scientific type of mind; in many UF books, magic and supernatural are taken for granted without much explanations. Here, Peter actively ponders on the nature of magic and the sources of its powers, and he also experiments with the effects magic has on different objects, resulting in some interesting conclusions, like when he discovers that magic can suck out energy from high-tech gadgets.

Nightingale often mentions his past apprentices, however, he’s the only magician in London, and it was made clear that him taking on apprentices isn’t an ordinary course of affairs, as Peter’s apprenticeship was considered to be a breaking of previously set accords. So the logical question would be, where are Nightingale’s past apprentices now and what happened to them?