★★★★★ Peter in captivity

Lies Sleeping

Ben Aaronovitch

** spoiler alert ** 

I read Ben Aaronovitch's Lies Sleeping for the first time a year and a half ago, on kindle -- my review here. Since then I have read every currently extant work in the Rivers of London series. At the date of writing this review that includes novels through Amongst Our Weapons and novellas through Winter's Gifts. Wanting good audiobooks to listen to while walking or driving, I have been working my way through the series in audio format. The experience is different from the first read, because it's an audiobook (duh...) but also because I know how everything is going to work out, and I know what these characters will become to Peter. There will be spoilers in the following. You have been warned!

In this novel the Met mounts a major operation to get The Faceless Man, who we now know to be one Martin Chorley. Lesley May is working with Chorley. Chorley has a complicated plan to sacrifice Punch, who is by way of being the genius loci/god of London, in order to bring King Arthur back to England. Lesley has no real interest in this -- she just want Punch killed, because, as she says, "London sucks".

“London sucks. Sucks the rest of the country dry. You want to get ahead, you have to go to London. You want to get away—go to fucking London. All the jobs, all the money goes to London. The rest of the country gets the leftovers, the bits that London doesn’t want.”

Peter thwarts the sacrifice, and Lesley, furious at Chorley's failure to accomplish what he had promised, kills Chorley.

My favorite part of Lies Sleeping is one specific section late in the book. As Peter and the Met chase Chorley, Peter is captured and held in an oubliette with Foxglove, one of the High Fae. Foxglove creates a bubble of space around herself within which Peter's magic doesn't work. She herself is not trapped in the oubliette -- she can magically jump out at any time, but Peter is stuck. Peter takes an interest in her -- she is a talented artist, and he admires her paintings and even poses for her. He gets her to tell him her story, which she does eagerly. It transpires that many years ago (probably 19th century or earlier) she and several of her friends/sisters were sold into slavery by the Faery Queen in return for some unknown consideration. One of those sisters was the Folly's maid Molly. Her sympathy won, Foxglove leaves the oubliette, taking Peter with her.

This episode highlights one of Peter's most salient characteristics -- his kindness. He wins Foxglove's sympathy because he is genuinely interested and concerned for her. Now, you may be thinking this is all strategic -- Peter just faked his concern in order to escape. Indeed, Peter himself would probably say so. But it is not true, as shown by an incident.

Peter, thinking back to his training on how to escape captivity, asks himself, "What would Lesley do?" He thinks this through and decides Lesley would lie to Foxglove, and that, to maximize his chances of winning Foxglove's sympathy, and escaping, he should lie. But he doesn't. In his concern for her, he is honest. In the event this works out well for him, but that isn't why he did it. And that, over and over throughout the series, is Peter's story. He is kind when he can foresee no personal benefit to being kind, and over and over it makes him a more effective policeman.

This story also illuminates Peter's relationship with Lesley. I suspect almost every character in the series thinks Lesley is smarter than Peter. That includes Peter himself. But she isn't. Peter has a Lesley-emulator in his brain. Whenever he wants to be as smart as Lesley, he asks himself , "What would Lesley say?" And it works -- he usually gets it right. Not always -- if he always got it right, Lesley would not have succeeded in springing unpleasant surprises on him, as she has done. But it turns out in those cases Lesley fooled Peter not by being smarter, but by being more ruthless. Peter failed to foresee that Lesley would go to the lengths she did: betraying him, and killing Chorley. Even Lesley has a limit, though. She stops shot of killing Peter, when that would have been to her advantage.

Foxglove, reunited with Molly, has a beautiful moment when the two dance together. That image was the high point of this Rivers of London novel for me.

Amazon review

Goodreads review