Moon Over Soho

The second installment in Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London urban fantasy series follows Peter Grant, a young London police constable and the first apprentice wizard in fifty years. Peter works for the Folly, a secretive two-person unit within the Metropolitan Police that handles supernatural cases, led by Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, a wizard born in 1900.

The novel opens with Peter visiting his colleague Lesley May in Brightlingsea, Essex. Lesley's face was destroyed by a malevolent spirit during the events of the first book. She communicates through handwritten notes and a speech synthesizer, hiding her injuries behind a hoodie, scarf, and sunglasses. When she asks whether magic can fix her, Peter reluctantly explains that magic-caused injuries cannot be reversed with more magic. She demands a demonstration; Peter produces a werelight, a conjured globe of light, but Lesley fails to replicate it.

Back in London, Dr. Abdul Haqq Walid, the Folly's cryptopathologist, summons Peter to the University College Hospital mortuary. The body belongs to Cyrus Wilkinson, a part-time jazz saxophonist who collapsed during a gig and died of apparent heart failure. When Peter leans close, he detects vestigia, the magical imprint left on physical objects: a saxophone playing "Body and Soul," a classic 1930s jazz standard. Such a strong imprint on a human body suggests someone used enormous magical energy on Wilkinson. At Wilkinson's house, Peter meets Simone Fitzwilliam, Wilkinson's lover, and Melinda Abbot, Wilkinson's fiancée, and must break the news of Wilkinson's death.

Nightingale suggests the jazz vestigia could be a practitioner's signare, an involuntary magical signature unique to each caster. Dr. Walid's statistical analysis reveals that two to three jazz musicians have died within 24 hours of a London gig each year for five years, far exceeding chance. Peter's father, Richard "Lord" Grant, a once-famous jazz trumpeter, helps him match the vestigia to a 1939 recording by Ken "Snakehips" Johnson and his West Indian Orchestra. Johnson was killed when a bomb struck the Café de Paris during the Blitz in 1941.

Peter meets Wilkinson's bandmates, whom he dubs "The Irregulars," and they visit the Mysterioso, a retro basement jazz club. Inside, Peter detects fresh vestigia of "Body and Soul" played on a trombone, meaning a different musician is being targeted. On Old Compton Street, he finds the body of Michael "Mickey the Bone" Adjayi, a 19-year-old trombonist radiating the same vestigia.

Before Peter can process this second death, Detective Sergeant Stephanopoulos summons him to the Groucho Club, where journalist Jason Dunlop has bled to death after his penis was excised, matching an earlier attack by a woman Peter calls the Pale Lady. At Dunlop's flat, investigators discover stolen magical texts including Isaac Newton's Principia Artes Magicis. Nightingale concludes they are dealing with a black magician.

Peter and Nightingale trace the books to Geoffrey Wheatcroft, a minor wizard who taught theology at Magdalen College, Oxford, the same college Dunlop attended. At Nightingale's abandoned former school for wizards, Peter sees walls bearing the names of 2,396 British wizards who died in World War Two. Nightingale reveals he carved every name himself.

Peter deploys Ash Thames, a young river god and one of the supernatural spirits associated with London's waterways, to patrol Soho for the Pale Lady. She attacks Ash, impaling him with an iron railing. Peter hijacks an ambulance and drives Ash to the Thames, where fellow river spirits save him, though Peter nearly drowns. The Commissioner reprimands Peter for the incident.

Investigating further, Peter traces the jazz deaths through Henry Bellrush, another musician who died after performing with a dancer named Peggy at the Café de Paris. Peter and Simone begin an affair. At the Café de Paris, Peter detects layered vestigia including a powerful silence from the 1941 bombing. In a wartime photograph of survivors, he recognizes Peggy as the woman he met at the Mysterioso. Peter theorizes that Simone, Peggy, and a third woman named Cherie are jazz vampires: They survived the bombing by unconsciously channeling the magic released at the moment of mass death and have been feeding on the life energy of jazz musicians ever since. Dr. Walid confirms identical brain damage in both Wilkinson and Mickey.

The Dunlop investigation leads to Norwich, where retired corrupt detective Jerry Johnson has been murdered by the same method. A photograph connects Johnson to Alexander Smith, a Soho burlesque impresario. Under interrogation, Smith reveals that a real magician operated in Soho decades ago, running a secret club on Brewer Street and creating chimeras, beings with hybrid animal and human features. Smith reports that a new magician recently appeared, asking about Peggy and about Peter. A raid on the club uncovers cages, chimera remains, and a magical booby trap that detonates when Nightingale tries to disarm it.

The Pale Lady infiltrates West End Central police station, kills Smith, and attacks an officer. Peter pursues her through Soho into the Trocadero Centre. After a brutal fight, he uses an impello spell that slams her against a balcony railing, and she falls to her death.

Lesley, now able to speak through a prosthetic, discovers that Dunlop dedicated his first novel to "Master Geoffrey," confirming Wheatcroft trained him. Lady Tyburn, the goddess of London's River Tyburn and Mama Thames's eldest daughter, reveals that a Magdalen dining club called the Little Crocodiles had members practicing magic. Nightingale confirms the Faceless One, their name for the new magician, was trained by Wheatcroft.

Peter's relationship with Simone reaches its crisis when his mother attacks Simone at a concert, revealing that Simone pursued Peter's father decades earlier and has not aged. Peter coaxes Simone into accessing her memories through music, and she unconsciously drains his life energy, causing him to collapse with a seizure. Simone realizes what she is and flees to find her sisters.

Peter discovers armed ex-paratroopers assembled at the Folly to assault the sisters' flat and races ahead alone. At the flat, the Faceless One waits on the rooftop, wearing a beige mask that prevents anyone from remembering his face. He uses a compulsion spell and powerful combat magic, but Peter resists and lands a hit. A police helicopter arrives; the Faceless One destroys its searchlight and escapes into the darkness.

Peter argues with Nightingale that the sisters deserve human rights and due process. Nightingale agrees, but when they reach the Café de Paris, they find all three women dead at their old table, the same spot where they sat the night of the bombing, having taken their own lives with alcohol and sleeping pills approximately twenty minutes before Peter arrived. Peter is devastated.

He returns to duty through routine, writes the classified case narrative, and worries about the Faceless One's network of Oxford-trained wizards. In a final visit to Brightlingsea, Lesley removes her mask to show Peter the full extent of her injuries: her chin gone, her nose shapeless, her skin scarred. Peter forces himself to look and cracks jokes to ease the moment. Then Lesley holds out her hand and produces a werelight, a beautiful opalescent globe of light prettier than any Peter has made. She can do magic.