I really love the world building in this series. It's so engrained into the society, no one really bats an eye about magic. Well most usually roll their eyes like it's some annoying secret of London that they'd rather not have to deal with. Which is a hilarious way to address the public knowing about magic.

The love of music, mixed with the love of London, it's so engulfing. It feels like you're walking the streets with Peter. These books read like your sitting at a café, and Peter is telling you about his latest case. Which is fun, because Peters side thoughts are funny, and he tells it in such a laid back manner that you can't help but want to know more.

His character growth from the last book to this one is fascinating. He is like growing a heart I guess? Ha. I don't know how to explain it, he's still a pretty crass main character, but he is also becoming less of a solo act I guess. Caring about those around him, and doing what's right by them.

I love his approach to magic, wanting to do all the tests. It feels like the book has the old way on display as we learn about the world, and how Nightingale's era did things, but it also has the new way, which I hope is hinting to a new generation of magic users.

This case was intricate and took us all around London meeting interesting people-magical and not. I look forward to the plot lines that were opened up here for future books. It looks to be an exciting ride. I hope the cases having many layers to dissect continues, because it makes it more complex and harder to tell who the really villains are. I didn't suspect one of them in this book at all.

Lesley, oh Lesley. I don't want to say much here because I don't want to spoil any of her development but man. After our first run in with her in this book I was so hoping it was going to develop the way it did. Glad to see she will still be a key part of the series.

The Peter does seem to make a lot of HP comments, which feel a bit cheap, like it's leaning on that world building already there to explain how something works in this world. But I also get that if a lot of us discovered magic right now, we would probably be making the same comparisons.

If you love police procedural mysteries, that are funny but build a vast magical world, you'll love this series. ( )

It would have helped to read the first book first, since this one dealt with consequences of what happened before. However, it went pretty well. ( )

Top-notch urban fantasy-funny and clever. I'm looking forward to the next one. ( )

Peter Grant, Patrol Constable and apprentice Wizard with the Metropolitan Police, is called in by Dr. Walid to listen to a corpse.

Cyrus Wilkinson, jazz musician by night and accountant by day, died suddenly, right after a performance, apparently of natural causes. However, in the process of doing the postmortem, Walid hears a song. He recognizes it as jazz, but jazz isn't his thing, and it is, if not Peter's, at least his father's. Richard Grant, nicknamed "Lord" Grant by his fellow musicians, stood on the brink of becoming a jazz legend twice, and managed to destroy his own career both times. Peter has grown up with jazz. He recognizes the song as "Body and Soul," but can't identify the musician. The fact that this remnant of music is clinging to the body, though, means that some really powerful magic was involved in Wilkinson's death. There's a killer out there, using magic, and he has to be caught. That means it's Peter's business, or rather the Folly's, which means--Peter and his boss, Thomas Nightingale.

Peter turns to his father to identify the musician playing the song. Then he goes doing normal police legwork into the background and associates of the dead man, and looking for signs of similar unexpected but seemingly natural deaths, specifically among jazz musicians. No one is going to let him dig up corpses to test for vestigia of magic, so--more legwork. He meets Simone, Cyrus Wilkinson's ex-lover, and his band, and is summoned to another death that looks remarkably like Cyrus's. As the band members realize that Peter is "Lord" Grant's son, and the police officer investigating their bandmate's death, they become happy to help with whatever information they can provide. Oh, and they'd like to meet "Lord" Grant, if convenient.

But beyond that relatively positive development, there's that other death, followed by yet another, by a different means. A man is found dead sitting on a toilet in a another music club, bled to death after his penis was bitten off in what appears to be a second instance of an attack by a woman with teeth in her vagina. Before long, Peter is hunting a Pale Lady (a death avatar), possible "jazz vampires," sucking the life force out of, for some reason, specifically jazz musicians. Peter also learns some, let's say startling, things about both Thomas Nightingale, and the Folly's housekeeper, Molly.

This is also the book where Peter meets Abigail Kamara. A tiny, unimportant detail, in this book.

It's an interesting and complex mystery, and we get better acquainted with Peter, his friends and family, and his world.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook. ( )

I didn't enjoy this as much as the first book, mainly because I thought Peter was a giant idiot who thought too much with his dick and did not realize how highly suspicious his new girlfriend was, whereas every single one of my molecules was screaming, "DANGER, DANGER, DANGER."

That said, this book was still good and the narration was, as always, beyond brilliant. And despite knowing whodunit fairly early on (or at least suspecting through having more than a few brain cells working at one go), the final denouement was still highly satisfying. It helped that there were actually two main plots going on in the book, of which the jazz murders were one. The other involved a new mysterious evil magician who is prone to using magic in no good, very bad ways. This latter plot was not resolved and I expect will continue playing out over the next few books because it looks to be deliciously tangled and complicated.

Also, Leslie! Cliffhanger! ( )