Readalot

Entertaining, British, DWJish

In tone, no, but many of the concepts in this story reminded me of Diana Wynne Jones. The details are just a touch too bloody for me to give this a five, but that probably says more about me than about the book. I did enjoy the story a lot, and have bought the sequel. I give full marks to the narrator who goes with apparent ease between Peter's accent (which sounds like the Jasmine Allen Estaters from "The Bill" to me), Dr Walid's Scottish and Nightingale's uppercrust Brit. He also makes a lovely job of the other accents Nigerian and whatever Oxley is... Irish? As far as I can tell,* he's pitch perfect. *I'm Australian, so my knowledge of accents isn't 100%.

I quite enjoyed this story (though less than the Peter Grant stories by Ben Aaronovitch) but I did get a little tired of Harry never being able to take a trick. I suspect his downbeat personality would bother me over several books. I love James Marsters' voice, but I would suggest he gets well back from that microphone. The audible breathing (though, to be fair, actors need oxygen) became distracting.

I enjoyed this even more than the first in the series, and now I'm hanging out for Book 3. I found the action a little easier to follow (maybe that's because I have got a bit better control over my iPod now... though I can't make it stop replaying the last half hour of any session whenever I switch it on!) and a lot of things from Book One suddenly made sense. Peter is an interesting character with a good deal of tolerance for the "different", though not a lot for the "ethically challenged". Back story for Nightingale, Molly and Richard "Lord" Grant slides seamlessly into the current action. Excellent work, Messers Aaronovitch and Holdbrook-Smith.