Lies Sleeping: A Rivers of London Novel

Aaronovitch’s seventh Peter Grant urban fantasy (after 2016’s The Hanging Tree) is more funny than memorable, with the plot overshadowed by the laugh-out-loud prose. Peter, a London police detective constable assigned to the pursuit of paranormal crime, has magic powers himself, and is also an extreme nerd able to distinguish between the depictions of dwarfish iconography in Tolkien’s books and those in filmed adaptations. He’s on the trail of Martin Chorley, the wizard known as Faceless Man II, who’s viewed as a major security threat to the U.K. Chorley has begun stealing artifacts, apparently as part of a plan to “bring back King Arthur... the one that was totally made up by a bunch of Welsh Nationalists and romantic Frenchmen.” Aaronovitch’s adeptness at injecting humor into the story outweighs the lessening of suspense that results, and his fans will delight in this outing. Agent: John Berlyne, Zeno Literary. (Nov.)