Detective Sergeant Peter Grant takes a much-needed holiday up in Scotland. And he’ll need one when this is over…
If more’s the merrier, then it’s ecstatic as his partner Beverley, their young twins, his mum, dad, his dad’s band and their dodgy manager all tag along. Even his boss, DCI Thomas Nightingale, takes in the coastal airs as he trains Peter’s cousin Abigail in the arcane arts.
And they’ll need them too, because Scotland’s Granite City has more than its fair share of history and mystery, myth … and murder. 
When a body is found in a bus stop, fresh from the sea, the case smells fishy from the off. 
Something may be stirring beyond the bay – but there’s something far stranger in the sky…

IN A NUTSHELL
Above average Rivers Of London novel with an engaging plot made more enjoyable by having the storytelling swap between Peter and Abigail, giving Beverley a more active role, setting the story in Aberdeen and, of course, by having talking foxes.

‘Stone & Sky‘ was the Rivers Of London novel that I’ve been waiting for since I finished ‘Amongst Our Weapons‘ three years ago. This time, Peter Grant goes even further north, all the way to Aberdeen, and he takes his whole family: mum, dad, his river goddess wife Beverly, their toddler twins and his magically gifted niece, Abigail Kamara, with him. It’s not entirely a holiday as Nightingale and Dr Walid initiated the trip to look into reports of a black panther ravaging Scottish sheep. 

It was fun seeing Peter dealing with the chaos his almost always active and much more mobile than you might expect twins create. It was also good to see Peter outside of London again. To me, he seems more likeable when he loses the home ground advantage and has to put some effort into figuring out who’s who and what’s up. 

The plot takes place not just in the granite streets of Aberdeen but on a North Sea Gas Platform. There’s a nicely judged level of menace and mystery that kept me engaged without taking the gloss off the humour. The plot had a strong local flavour and a few unexpected twists. There were a couple of hanging plot threads at the end, for example, what was the final outcome for the marine biologist? But I was sufficiently entertained by all the other things going on that I didn’t notice the loose ends until well after I’d finished the book. 

One of the things that made the book such fun is that about half the chapters are told from Abigail’s point of view. She’s my favourite Rivers Of London character. I love her independence and the level of strategic and scientific thought she brings to the use of magic. She was, of course, accompanied by one of her talking foxes who connected her to the local fox operations team. Abigail has come a long way in the four years since the events of ‘What Abigail Did That Summer‘. Her confidence and her knowledge of magic have both grown. She’s embedded herself in the Folly. She’s even taught Nightingale how to use emojis. In this book, we get to see her connect with her first girlfriend. 

I liked the changing dynamic between Beverley and Peter. Beverley isn’t in the background any more. She plays an active, risky and important part in what happens on the gas platform. Not only was it good to see her in action, but it was a clever way of pushing Peter to reassess his attitude to risk now that he’s a husband and father.

‘Stone & Sky’ worked well as an audiobook, especially with Kobna Holdbrook-Smith voicing Peter’s chapters nd Shvorne Marks voicing Abigail’s chapters. Click on the YouTube link below to hear a sample.