What Abigail Did That Summer

A Rivers of London Novella (Rivers of London Series)

By: Ben Aaronovitch

Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Shvorne Marks

Ghost hunter, fox whisperer, troublemaker.

It is the summer of 2013, and Abigail Kamara has been left to her own devices. This might, by those who know her, be considered a mistake. While her cousin, police constable and apprentice wizard Peter Grant, is off in the sticks chasing unicorns, Abigail is chasing her own mystery. Teenagers around Hampstead Heath have been going missing, but before the police can get fully engaged, the teens return home - unharmed but vague about where they've been.

Aided only by her new friend, Simon, her knowledge that magic is real, and a posse of talking foxes that think they're spies, Abigail must venture into the wilds of Hampstead to discover who is luring the teenagers and more importantly - why?

©2021 Ben Aaronovitch (P)2021 Tantor

Kobna the quiet

Loved the story and Shvorne's performance. My only issue is while listening to the story in my car, Kobna's volume was too low to hear what he was saying. Need to boost the volume balance.

Loved it!

Great characters and some quotables! It must be real as it’s too boring for fiction.

had 2 read twice

At first go I only finished the book because I love the others so much. then I read the reviews and had a second go. It is still not on my top for the series but it's better than ok. I enjoyed the interpretive intersections.

Performances were good but…

…the audio was bad. It made me feel like there wasn’t a lot of effort put into the production quality. Overdubs cut in with loud noise in the background, actor’s dubs do not match their original intent, etc.

This book was designed for a preteen audience. Word choice therefore uses a fair amount of British slang, “fam.” As I don’t have the benefit of the printed version I’m not sure who made the decision to have Nightingale (?) cut in and define the words as they first appear, Urban Dictionary style. If the author included it in TOV (the original version), I can only assume that it played better on paper. If it was added in for the audiobook audience, the please add this in with my production value gripes.

Now I shall explain that I buried the lead. I love this story and the characters that are developing! Especially enchanting are the foxes. Their individual voices and their interactions with other animals are charming and sweet.

Simon, too, would be great to hear more from as a child who may not be clever but whose happiness and radiance outshine the darkness around him. He loves to play games, hates Latin and can climb higher and faster than most of the squirrels in the park.

Abigail felt a bit too old to easily slide into a story with this crew which is a shame. I loved the plot and could easily see it developed into a book for younger audiences, but Simon felt too young to be going to the same late-night happenings Abigail would attend.

I apologize for a scattered review, I just wanted to capture my thoughts right as they popped up at 1:00 am.

Really enjoyed Abigail's story!!

It's nice that the precocious Abigail has a story of her own. It's too bad that Kobna Holdbrook-Smith didn't do the voice of Nightingale since he did the professor's voice. I admit a couple of times I got confused on the time lines and the flashbacks, but the narrator did a great job of keeping the mood appropriate so the listener knows when something is going wrong. The Peter Grant series is one of my favorite reads, and whenever Abigail has been involved in the other books,, I get a kick out of her interactions with Peter and his frustration with his precocious cousin... overall, an enjoyable, fun read!!