(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

I enjoyed the new Ben Aaronovitch, but I am not at all pleased about

Lesley's betrayal of them. I think Zach - who has after all got rather closer to her than Peter has, even if his judgement is not reliable - might be right about there being more to it than Peter thinks, possibly indeed her attempting to go undercover (her sudden taser-happiness seemed both slightly off and to indicate a growing dissatisfaction about going by the book). Unlike the reviewer at Tor, I didn't think it came out of nowhere - there are signs of things being wrong, even if Peter is too distracted to think much about them.

But if our author makes Lesley evil, I will not be happy at all. She did (apparently) refuse to kill Peter...

On a less unhappy note, I wonder what Molly is up to, and if it has any bearing on the Lesley plot twist.

Comments

[legionseagle]

I'm glad I've heard the spoiler because unless something changes in the next book I'm not reading further; the handling of her disaster in book one in books 2 & 3 have been such a breath of fresh air I'd be devastated if it goes back onto well-trodden stuff after that.

So I'll wait a couple of years.

[tree_and_leaf]

I am willing to wait and see, because I think there's enough textual evidence that Peter's missing things that I'm not sure that it's what it looks like - but I agree with your point, I will be very upset if B.A. messes it up after such a good start.

[sollers]

Unreliable Narrator and then some.

[sollers]

There's a double thing going on: Peter's father's teeth and Lesley's face. And it's worth remembering that it was Lesley, having been taken over, is involved in causing so much of the mayhem in the first book. So far, she doesn't come over to me as evil so much as damaged in many ways.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, and there's the irony of her (apparently) looking to the Faceless Man for help with her face.

I'm also wondering if there isn't more mind-control in play; it's been established that the Faceless Man is very, very good at it, and in a much more subtle way than Mr Punch. But I suspect it may turn out as 'gone rogue (possibly motivated by feeling acutely dispensable)' rather than 'gone evil'. Come to think of it, the whole plotline with Peter's father is about living with the consequences of sabotaging yourself (possibly as a result of magic damage).

[sir_guinglain]

I really, really must read these.

[tree_and_leaf]

You should - they're excellent, and very good at evoking London and its layers of history.