Amongst Our Weapons is the 9th full length novel in the Rivers of London series and as per usual is definitely not the place to start if you haven’t read any of the books yet. (If you haven’t they are very good so head back to book 1 and pick it up!). And if you’re wondering why I’ve titled this review Pieces of Silver it’s because I won of the 100 celebratory coins minted for the publication of this book 🙂
We are once again in London with our magic empowered section of the Metropolitan Police (The Folly) with Peter Grant and the rest of the team. Peter’s river goddess partner Beverly is heavily pregnant with twins, it feels like magic is becoming more prevalent around the country and it’s time for another challenge.
In this novel there’s an incident at the London Silver Vaults and it seems like the angel of death is stalking people with connection to a magical ring. This all ties back to a group of students in the 1990s who became mixed up in the boundaries of religion and magic and now someone wants them and that power back.
It’s a book where relationships and power balances change in the series. Peter is now senior enough to be training a newbie to the force, Nightingale’s frustration with Peter’s willingness to put himself into danger comes to the fore with him emphasising Peter has to be more responsible, Peter becomes a father, and we also see more of magical England. We head north to Glossop (meeting another river goddess) and find the descendants of the smiths who built magical weapons for the Folly (the Sons of Wayland – and there’s a sneak joke in their with the name of their chief that I won’t ruin).
We also see more of the regular police with a strong presence from DCI Seawoll and actual surveillance operations which is, for me, always an entertaining part of these books to see that clash. Peter’s ‘evil’ counterpart Lesley also returns and once more seems to be playing all sides in this conflict – that’s getting a little dull and it would be good to have a conclusion to that story thread.
All-in-all this is another good entry in the series that moves the overarching story along and changes the positions of characters. I’d like the Rivers to be more central again and it feels like there is a shift in the presence of magic in the stories and world (Peter once again referred to as ‘The Starling’, more of the magical underground). It’ll be interesting to see where the stories go next
