Amongst Our Weapons (Rivers of London #9), by Ben Aaronovitch

Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Finally! I’m free of this book! I used to really like this world and its rather unique inhabitants as well as the stories Ben Aaronovitch so expertly told us.
This time around, though, I was bored by the lacklustre story at the centre of “Amongst Our Weapons”: An “Angel of Death” is killing the owners of some obscure rings with Lesley being on the hunt for said rings. Peter does his best to prevent further deaths.

Through 80% of this instalment in the series, I only read it in bed because it served as a perfect sleeping drug. The abysmal pacing, being told about Beverly’s pregnancy (mostly referred to as “the bulge” which felt derogatory even though it most certainly wasn’t meant like that), quite a few encounters with the culprit but hardly any progress until the very end – it all made for a veritable snoozefest.

Nightingale is mostly around and yet feels strangely absent – he doesn’t have much of a role at all.

Fortunately, there were a few redeeming moments: Peter refuses to lay a trap to just plain kill the culprit but looks for a better solution. Lesley plays a much better role than previously and – very importantly – the foxes are back. Not as prominently as they deserve but at least they’re there and hilarious as ever.
And, of course, Beverly’s and Peter’s twins are finally born!

Still, “Amongst Our Weapons” read like Aaronovitch has lost any real intrinsic motivation to write these novels. He routinely wrote another entry which will, undoubtedly, sell well but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it anymore.

A sad two stars out of five.


Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam




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