''Foxglove Summer'' is the fifth novel in the '' Peter Grant series'' by

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

author

Ben Aaronovitch Ben Dylan Aaronovitch (born 22 February 1964) is an English author and screenwriter. He is the author of the ''Peter Grant (book series), Rivers of London'' series of novels. He also wrote two ''Doctor Who'' serials in the late 1980s and spin-of ...

, published in 2014 by Gollancz.

Plot

The protagonist Peter Grant is left shaken by the developments at the end of the previous book, the sudden betrayal and defection by a highly valued colleague to whom Grant also had a strong emotional tie. The moping Grant welcomes the chance to leave the familiar grounds of London and travel to rural

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...

, where the disappearance of two eleven-year old girls is a media sensation, the focus of an intensive police search - and might have grave magical implications as well. Grant finds that the tangle of marital and extra-marital relations in a small rural community is not only a matter for gossip, but bears very serious criminal implications, and some supernatural ones as well. He meets with a retired wizard, traumatized by the secret magical battles of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and with the wizard's granddaughter who has a very special affinity with bees. Grant gets into intensive contact with

Beverley Brook Beverley Brook is a minor English river long in south-west London. It rises in Worcester Park and joins the River Thames to the north of Putney Embankment at Barn Elms. Course Beverley Brook rises at the top of a hill in a shady area at Cuddi ...

, the goddess or Genius loci of

, a tributary of the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

- and learns by personal experience just how rivers gain such gods. He finds that

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...

s are all too real and that their horns are deadly weapons; that

fairies A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, o ...

do exist and even in the 21st century they do sometimes kidnap human children and replace them with

changeling A changeling, also historically referred to as an auf or oaf, is a human-like creature found in folklore throughout Europe. A changeling was believed to be a fairy that had been left in place of a human (typically a child) stolen by other fairi ...

s; and he meets with a real-life

faerie queen ''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 sta ...

, very different from the one imagined by Spenser. As the ultimate result of all that, Grant faces the prospect of being stuck forever as a captive in the real-life fairyland - an

alternative reality A parallel universe, also known as a parallel dimension, alternate universe, or alternate reality, is a hypothetical self-contained plane of existence, co-existing with one's own. The sum of all potential parallel universes that constitute reali ...

Otherworld The concept of an otherworld in historical Indo-European religion is reconstructed in comparative mythology. Its name is a calque of ''orbis alius'' (Latin for "other Earth/world"), a term used by Lucan in his description of the Celtic Otherworld ...

where Britain is still covered with a massive unbroken

primeval forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

, with no sign of the familiar towns and villages. Grant's single, slender hope of escape lies in the lasting magical (or possibly anti-magical) effect of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

's engineering projects and of the Romans' habit of imposing themselves on the landscape and building " roads straight as an arrow" wherever they ruled.

Characters

Returning characters

* Police Constable Peter Grant; an officer in the Metropolitan Police and the first official apprentice wizard in sixty years. * Lesley May; formerly Police Constable in the Metropolitan Police and de facto apprentice to Nightingale; now criminal associate of the faceless man and subject to an internal investigation * Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale; head of the Folly and the last officially sanctioned English Wizard. * Molly; The Folly's domestic helper, of unknown species. * Dr Abdul Haqq Walid; world-renowned

gastroenterologist Gastroenterology (from the Greek gastḗr- “belly”, -énteron “intestine”, and -logía "study of") is the branch of medicine focused on the digestive system and its disorders. The digestive system consists of the gastrointestinal tract, ...

and cryptopathologist. * Beverley Brook; goddess of a small suburban river and consulting ecologist.

Characters introduced in this novel

* Detective Constable Dominic Croft; a member of the West Mercia Major Crimes Unit assigned as Peter's liaison. Peter Grant (book series) 2014 British novels Novels by Ben Aaronovitch English fantasy novels Novels set in Herefordshire Victor Gollancz Ltd books {{2010s-fantasy-novel-stub