The Furthest Station

The Furthest Station
by Ben Aaronovitch
Recommended Ages: 14+

There's been a breakout of ghostly sightings on London's commuter rail system, and junior Detective Constable Peter Grant, from a division of the police force specializing in supernatural investigations, joins a rail copper and a few others (including his too-talented-for-her-own-good teenaged cousin, Abigail) in trying to learn what it means. It's a spooky mystery, for sure – first of all, because the witnesses quickly forget all about their spectral encounters; but also because the ghosts seem to have a message they desperately want to convey before strangely (even for ghosts) shattering into pieces. It doesn't take Peter & Co. long to work out that these shades of the dead may be trying to tell them that someone still living is in deadly danger. The question is just who, where and how to save them.

If you're entering this series late (as I am), what you need to know is that Peter Grant is a half-African Londoner who has just made detective in the police force, and also a magical practitioner who is studying Latin and jiggery pokery under a wizard Detective Inspector named Nightingale. They work for a branch of the police, sometimes known as the Folly (or maybe that's just the magical outfit they belong to), tasked with investigating weird stuff such as, for example, ghosts on the Metro Line. Also, just so you're aware, they sometimes have to deal with such folk as the High Fae and the genii locorum of Greater London's rivers, one of whom is Peter's girlfriend.

Clearly, you and I have missed a lot going into this book. Another thing I, for one, have missed is a lifetime speaking London's local patois. There were times, reading this book, when I had to look up references on the Internet because they went right over my head, despite the occasional footnote for the benefit of the American reader. Nevertheless, I collected the impression that Peter narrates his adventures with a nonstop flow of sardonic wit, moving swiftly from one turn of the plot to the next, and that someone with the sense to start the series at the beginning would probably find this story an enriching addition to a growing and multi-layered structure of plot and character.

Ben Aaronovitch is a sometime screenwriter who has written scripts for Doctor Who, Casualty and Jupiter Moon. This is the first title in his "Rivers of London" series, of which Fantastic Fiction enumerates nine novels and four novellas. By that reckoning, this novella is number "5.5" in the series, pretty much dead center in the list. Other titles that I've got on deck include no. 1, Rivers of London a.k.a. Midnight Riot; no. 7, Lies Sleeping (which I'm actually reading now); and no. 8, False Value. The newest title, a novella (no. 9.5) titled Winter's Gifts, is due for release in print on Dec. 1, 2023, though it's already available on Kindle.