False Value is the latest in the long running P.C. Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch, in which a young London policeman discovers he can do magic, investigates mystical crimes, finds love, and does a truly horrific amount of paperwork. I’ve been a fan of the series for years, so I went in expecting quite a lot from False Value – and it absolutely stepped up and delivered.
One of the strong points of the series has always been the worldbuilding. It suggests a London which lives alongside the one we’re familiar with. One where vampires lurk in suburban basements, and where mystical pacts drive the tunnels of Crossrail. And this works, because both sides of the liminal divide are treated with equal attention, and equal respect. The pageants of the old gods of the river have all the colour, verve and life that sits at the heart of these celebrations even now. And the fluorescent flickers of the Silicon Roundabout, with its buzzwords and ruthlessness disguised as corporate beneficence is appallingly familiar. It’s also no less strange than a policeman who can fling fire from his fingertips, though perhaps a little more mundane.
For me it’s the blend that makes this world work. The way that the normal and the supernatural mix, the way they interweave, until the idea that the tech wizards over the river might have something in common with actual wizards seems worryingly plausible. Also, even as these worlds are being woven together by an expert hand, we get to see London. Living, breathing, occasionally kicking the crap out of someone, occasionally letting that sparkle at the bottom of a sewer grate be your wedding ring after all. Aaronovitch loves London, and it shows in the prose, whose descriptions balance sharp observation with wry affection. By the end of this story, I defy you not to love London too, or at least, understand it a little better.
So yes. We’re back in London. And yes, London is as fierce and driven and dark and beautiful as it ever was, laced with history, with romance and death, with people getting by, people getting rich, and people fighting to survive. You can feel that on the page.
Which brings us to Peter. In a lot of ways, we’ve watched Peter Grant grow up over the series. The man on these pages is perhaps a little more emotionally honest with himself than he had been. Carries a few more scars, physical and mental. This Peter Grant can still be surprised, which is a delight for him and us (well, except when he’s surprised by some new and exciting way to get himself killed, which is less good for him), but has the experience to be cautious. Watching Peter mature has been a joy, and he’s a good man here, I think. Someone who can be a friend, a partner, a mentor. Possibly not always doing the correct thing, but by his light, trying to eventually do the right one.
As a character study, it’s a joy to read. Peter’s internal voice is wry, cynical, observant and self aware. It’s a pleasure to be along for the ride with him, and that voice is what keeps you turning pages, trying to see what Peter is seeing, trying to work the corners of a mystery, trying to understand what’s coming next. And what’s next for him too, actually. Peter is comfortable in himself, I think, but trying to understand what’s next – and at the same time is warm and loving to his family, a smartarse, and a top-notch investigator.
There’s a wider cast, of course. Many are familiar faces to long time readers. Some are new. All of them have something. Each of them is memorable, from the odd denizens of London’s tech sector, to the at-least-as-odd denizens of its supernatural courts. They’re real. Police working on cases with minimal budgets and support, trying to do the best they can and keep the peace. Private security, balancing the needs of their bosses and a steady income with what they’re willing to do in service of either. Rivers who want to have fun – or not. And other things, stranger, darker things, they live here too. And if all of the people feel real, if we empathise with them, if we feel their sadness and their passion and their amity and their rage and their love for one another, we also feel the darkness, sitting just out of view, and it is no less intimate, no less real than the people who live with it, around it, or investigate it. It all works, this story of people, and works wonderfully.
So the world is brilliantly realised, the characters live and breathe. But is the story any good, though?
Well, in a word, yes. I do think it works better if you’ve read the previous books in the series. It would work as a standalone, but there’s context here, relationships built up, personal accretions constructed over the course of years of fiction, which you’d miss out on without the previous books. I probably missed more from not having read the comics. But yes, the story, it works. As a standalone, yes. As part of a wider series, of a wider universe – very much so.
I don’t want to give story spoilers here. But this one is a lot of fun. There’s some lovely personal interludes for Peter, working on his relationships. There’s some top-notch scheming. The investigative work is meticulous, the action sequences tense, the dialogue witty, the banter abundant. If Peter’s always half a step ahead in cracking the case, we’re always there with him, seeing what he sees, and trying to work out what’s going on. In finest mystery tradition, the clues are all there for us to work on. And this one is a pretty fine mystery, too. There’s heart-in-mouth moments, and the pindrop silences of quiet terror. There’s backchat between friends, and explosions. There’s action sequences that had me speeding through the pages, and emotional moments that had me savouring every word.
Basically, this is another fine entry in the series. You’ll want to pick it up, and once you do, you won’t be able to put it down.
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