What the hell did I just read? Wheres the rest of it? I need the rest of it NOW!On a more rational note, this is another better novel of the Peter Grant series. As ever, the strength of the writing and story lies on Peters narration and sarcastic voice, so if that hasnt won you over by now, dont expect the scattered plot threads to dazzle you. If youre invested in the long plot, however, sit back and enjoy the ride.The story is of the slow sort and reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes in a way that doesnt make a good mystery novel. Not in the puristic sense. Too much is hidden for the readers to piece together the puzzle for themselves and they have to wait for the genius to guide them through the intuitive steps of logical deduction.Broken Homes also suffers from the middle book syndrome but because this is the fourth in the series lets call it the set up syndrome. Everything, and I do mean everything is set up for bigger things to come and even the explosions at the end arent enough to release the underlying tension. It feels like things are going to get a lot worse before they get better and Peter needs to improve on his policing as well as his magic lessons. And fast. Whens the next book coming out again?

4 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.blogspot.com/201...New rule: if you are an urban fantasy starring a London policeman-turned-wizard named Peter Grant, then I MUST READ YOU. Let's just say I have waited a long time for this! After devouring the first three books last spring, I was left with a void that only this series' dry wit and magical action could provide, and now book four has finally made its way to the US.Ben Aaronovitch does not hold back for Peter's latest adventure, which involves our favorite magician-constable working to solve yet another string of odd deaths happening around the city. The first red flag goes up when a chance car accident leads him to a murder victim, who may have a link to the mysterious "Faceless Man." That's the big baddie that Peter and his supervisor Nightingale have been hunting over the course of the last couple of books.As such, Broken Homes probably wouldn't be the best jumping on point if you're new to the series, albeit the central plot within the bigger picture is still wildly entertaining. When it is discovered that the odd deaths are all connected to a controversial housing estate "designed by a nutter, built by charlatans, and inhabited by the truly desperate", Peter and his fellow investigators come up with an insane plan to get to the bottom of the mystery. What do they do? They move in and go under cover. Trouble ensues. And with that, tons of amusement for readers.Here's why I think it would be a good idea to at least tackle the previous book first before reading this one: if you're not familiar with the overall story arc with the Faceless Man, the first half of the book will probably feel pretty slow. I personally was interested in the investigations because a lot of it had to do with uncovering the identity of the enemy and trying to capture him, but without that context I think a lot of the happenings will feel disjointed or only tenuously connected.But as someone who has been following this series, I think it is clearly starting to come into its own. With that comes a greater appreciation for the little quirks only found in these books, like London's rivers personified as semi-divine spirits, Peter's esoteric interests into the city's architecture or even his frequent funny jabs at the Metropolitan Police. All this made even some of the more low-key bits of the book very fascinating and engaging -- such as the scene with the spring celebration, or descriptions of Peter's magical training sessions.However, I have to say the second half of the book -- which includes the subsequent build-up to the climax -- and ending is simply phenomenal. As the main protagonist and narrator, I thought Peter would always be my favorite character in these books, but Nightingale may have just given him a run for his money. His anachronisms and total fail with modern technologies notwithstanding, the guy is awesome. You might think you know wizarding duels, but you don't -- not until you read about the one near the end of this book, with Nightingale versus the Russian Night Witch. I think I may have a crush.Then, there's the climax and the shocking "twist". I put the quotations there because I'm not sure how truly surprising it is if you've been following the series and the characters. It was shocking yes, but it wasn't completely unexpected. The clues leading up to it weren't entirely subtle, though that might just be me. All the same, the excitement and snappy pace in these final chapters will make you ache for more, and leave you desperate to find out what happens next.Sigh, which leads me back to this familiar place, of pining for the next book. The waiting does not get easier!

"This book is dedicated to all the people who get up and do something about it, whatever it is and however small the thing it is they do."With this perfect dedication, Broken Homes - the fourth entry in Ben Aaronovitch's series about a snarky, geeky and ultimately good London Police Constable Peter Grant, employed in the subdivision of the Metropolitan police focused on magical side of the society - hit the high note from the very beginning and remained very good until the last page.A few things always stand out for me in Aaronovitch's series and make his books quite special.First is the very distinct narrative voice of Peter Grant - a bit snarky, a bit smartass, full of endless geeky references and quite a bit of self-deprecating humor, and so captivating that, I swear, I'd read about grocery shopping and plumbing if Peter Grant was narrating it."Id love to stick some high vestigia material into a mass spectrometer, but first Id have to get myself a mass spectrometer and then Id have to learn enough physics to interpret the bloody results." Second is the unbelievably vivid atmosphere of the streets and buildings of architecturally beautiful multicultural London, described so lovingly and fully that even this non-Londoner reader feels that she just took a stroll along the Thames. Speaking of the Thames - I finally decided to search for a map with all the 'lost' rivers of London, mostly tributaries of the Thames that had long ago been converted to underground rivers. And read quite a bit about Heygate Estate which provided inspiration for Skygarden Estate in this book.Third is the continuing emphasis on keeping these stories as much of police procedural as possible, with constant reminders that keeping the peace comes with the burden of regulations and paperwork and long hours spent gathering evidence and staring at miles of CCTV footage and juggling many different investigative threads that do not always conveniently come together to reveal a bigger picture. Mundane routine is the reality of police life, Aaronovitch emphasizes it, and his characters navigate the system in a way that makes you believe they are actually part of real-life police force."Its a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others."Peter Grant books avoid the common pitfall of so many stories that feature anyone with supernatural abilities: the immediate disregard of anyone not magical and resulting complete despising of police force as little but clueless buffoons good for nothing except for throwing obstacles in the way of the heroes. It's not so in Peter Grant series. Police force are the competent people who are perfectly capable of working side by side with their slightly more supernaturally inclined colleagues, even if it means creating just a tad more paperwork than planned."So I waited in the porch and wrote up my notes. I have two sets, the ones that go in my Moleskine and the slightly edited ones that go into my official Met issue book. This is very bad procedure, but sanctioned because there are some things the Met doesnt want to know about officially. In case it might upset them."These stories also not only feature a wide array of non-white characters (as would be appropriate in a city as multicultural as London), but have quite unique in our literature approach of actually integrating race in the story, casually mentioning race in the description of many white characters, thus subverting the unspoken rule that only non-white characters' race needs to be specified since white is the assumed default. No, here race is just one of the descriptors, applied to white people as well, and that reads very refreshing and common-sense.The humor of this book deserves a separate shout-out. It's very British (I assume, not being British myself), quite dry, quite intelligent. Combined with the uber-Britishness of this book (again, assumed by me, a non-British reader) it creates a very memorable and very British setting, requiring me - happily - to resort to Google a few times to make sure I understand what's being said and why it's funny.Broken Homes is very much a middle-of-the story book. The threads started in the previous three - including the greater and greater focus on the villainous Faceless Man - continue here without much hand-holding from the author to remind you where we left off. This book counts on you being quite familiar with the characters and events from the preceding three as it throws you right in the middle of continuing storyline. The flipside of this is that you should not expect all - or even some - of the storylines pursued here to wrap up by the end of this book; no, they will continue into the sequel as by now they all are just little threads of one larger story, leaving you in the meantime with hanging burning questions and no satisfaction of having them answered yet."See, I thought as I waited for the lift, someone tries to kill you and suddenly youre all cautious."Peter Grant ("I could have used my magical abilities to get a closer look, but instead I used the zoom function on my phone"), Lesley May ("[... ] whose attitude toward taser deployment was that people with heart conditions, epilepsy and an aversion to electrocution should not embark upon breaches of the peace in the first place") and Thomas Nightingale ("Nightingale gave me the same long-suffering look he gives me when I accidentally blow up fire extinguishers, fall asleep while hes talking, or fail to conjugate my Latin verbs") are pursuing their leads to uncover the identity and the associates of the mysterious and dangerous Faceless Man while solving a few murders, a theft, establishing a connection of a sink estate to all of this and policing a supernatural deity fair - all while trying their best to stay alive and caught up with paperwork.That which does not kill us, I said, has to get up extra early in the morning if it wants to get us next time.It starts with the usual lighthearted humor full of witty banter, but somewhere around the halfway mark the tone becomes more and more serious as Skygarden becomes the primary investigative location, and not only social issues are raised to the surface with apt social commentary (for instance, the struggle of the mostly poor inhabitants of the estate taking up space that could have been used for something infinitely more lucrative) but also the long-standing character tensions come to light, including Lesley's painful struggle to live with her 'ruined' face and the toll it takes on her - sometimes too subtle for Peter to actually see.And then, like a punch in the gut, the ending comes - unexpectedly and yet not that much, as throughout the book little clues were dropped alerting you that something was amiss, something was different, something was about to crack. And yet, whether you saw it coming or not, the impact remains - both on Peter and the reader, making me immediately go and look up when the next book in the series is due (and resolving to buy it as soon as it comes out, even if I have to pay for the extra shipping from Britain). It's painful and sad and leads to so many questions, and having your heart break for Peter just a bit. 4.5 stars and the countdown to the next book release begins."Sometimes, when you turn up on their doorstep, people are already expecting bad news. Parents of missing kids, partners that have heard about the air crash on the news you can see it in their faces theyve braced themselves. And theres a strange kind of relief, too. The waiting is over, the worst has happened and they know that they will ride it out. Some dont, of course. Some go mad or fall into depression or just fall apart. But most soldier through.But sometimes they havent got a clue and you arrive on their doorstep like gods own sledgehammer and smash their life to pieces. You try not to think about it, but you cant help wondering what it must be like.Now I knew."----------My reviews for the first three books in this series are here: 'Rivers of London' (a.k.a. 'Midnight Riot' in the US), 'Moon Over Soho' and 'Whispers Under Ground'.

This series gets better with every new book! I was practically hyperventilating for the last 30 or so pages of this story and it took a good 10 minutes to catch my breath after hitting The End. Ben Aaronovitch doesn't pull his punches. He's become one of my favourite authors with this series.The pace is quick, the dialogue is entertaining and full of witty banter, the characters are deep complicated people who you can't help but fall in love with, Peter's scientific studies into the nature of magic are progressing nicely and infused with an appropriate amount of what I think of as "Peter-quirk", some of my new favourite characters from the last book made an appearance in this one, and as always there was lots of excitement and no shortage of Peter and co getting themselves into all kinds of trouble.I'm bleak that I finished this so quickly because it means I have to wait that much longer before I get my next Peter Grant fix! So good!! :)

I loved this. More details later.