The Hanging Tree

These books just keep getting better and better.

This is a busy and exciting story. It includes the Faceless Man, whom I don't like, because I don't like over-the-top villains in general. However, there's so much going on here that he doesn't dominate the story, and overall I think this is one of the best episodes in the series. In fact, I enjoyed my ninth read of it so much that I've decided to promote it to five stars.

The title is a bit odd: the hanging tree is mentioned in the course of the story, but it seems a minor historical detail that isn't particularly relevant to the plot. I guess that the author struggled in vain to find any suitable title for this one, which is about complications arising from the death of a teenage girl.

The complications turn out to involve the Faceless Man, but also various other players operating independently and sometimes conflicting with each other. There's a spectacular finale in which they all get involved in a kind of mass shootout—inside the expensive block of flats at One Hyde Park in London, which is a real building that you can see in Google Maps Street View, and indeed elsewhere on the Web.

This story is our first encounter with Lady Helena Louise Linden-Limmer and her adopted daughter Caroline—although we met Caroline briefly earlier under an assumed name. We also meet Michael Cheung for the first time. Abigail Kamara doesn't appear in the story, unusually.

I enjoyed it! Not going to do longer review coz there's loads of them.

Executive Summary: I thought this was a much better entry that the last one. We finally get some progress on the main story plot, although once again not as much as I was hoping.

Audiobook: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is fantastic as always. When the previous books weren't quite as good as the earlier ones, his narration helped keep me engaged. In a better book like this one he elevates it that much more.

Full Review
I've never been in a rush to catch up on this series, and that was especially true after the last entry. I tend to leave it for when I need something light and have a small gap of time between books. This series has a unique world building compared to many other detective urban fantasy series, and that's one of the main reasons I've kept coming back.

However the reason I tend to prefer epic fantasy over other forms is I like big stories. This series has an overarching series that I want to learn more about, but the last few entries seemed to meander and offer almost nothing of the big picture. Thankfully that wasn't the case in this one.

Things still didn't move along as much as I'd have liked, but far more than the last two. Some interesting new elements to the larger picture were added in as well with the introduction to some history of the female practitioners.

Overall this was a fun and light read that scratched the itch I was looking for. It's also renewed my interest in the series a bit more and I probably will pick up the next book in the next few months rather than sometime next year.

Learned a lot more about the Faceless man and Lesley as well as the Rivers. Sometimes series can stretch out stuff like this but this series moves right along. There is the usual amount of humor and I like the Peter/Beverly relationship.
So if you're reading and enjoying the series, you can safely continue with this one.
I'm looking forward to more of this.
This is a re-read, still pretty good

I know my consistent 3-star rating doesn't make it seem like I'm super into this series. Rest assured, I actually am. Even my not-favorite books in the series are still utter delights. I love Peter. I want to give Peter a big hug. I love the diverse and wonderful and hilarious cast. I love how awful the villain is. And he is awful. On top of basically being Magical Mengele, he's so classist and racist and terrible, he's sort of terrifying–because he's realistic, even though he's a powerful magic-user. If you don't think he's realistic, then you weren't paying attention to American politics. Knowing who he is now actually made it worse.

This being said, I am still sad over Lesley, because she and Peter had an adorable friendship. I also miss seeing more Molly and Toby, and I miss Abigail.

I am all in on these Peter Grant books. This is another good one.

Most interesting to me, however, is Lesley. The reasons for her defection are still unclear, though I am beginning to get the feeling that her allegiances aren???t quite as clear as the reader ??? and Peter ??? might have been led to assume. It is not something I can pinpoint with a particular quote ??? and even then I would not quote it here, since doing so would be spoiling the story too much ??? but I think that Lesley might not be so firmly on the Faceless Man???s side after all. This all remains to be seen, of course, but I look forward to seeing where all this goes, whether or not my instincts are proven right.

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-xp

Peter Grant and the Folly are back for another adventure. This one has the usual charm and easy readability. It's a good read, but I do worry that this series is going to fall into the series trap of being spun out past its natural length (see also: John Connolly). But that's a concern for the future - in the meantime I enjoyed the heck out of this one.