So this is the fifth in the Peter Grant series, and I'll say (again) that if you haven't read them, you're really missing out.
For background, I'll explain that Peter is a PC (police constable) in London, assigned to the Folly, which is sort of a Hogwarts/X-Files hybrid where Peter both learns magic and investigates police cases that might involve the supernatural.
In Foxglove Summer, Peter is sent off his patch and out to Leominster and its environs to help in the case of two missing 11-year-old girls. Now, I have to say that the reason for sending him felt a bit flimsy—something to do with always checking on missing kids because wizards and witches sometimes like to use them? Stuff of fairy tales, I guess, but whatever. Off Peter goes, and the short answer is that it was a slow start, a great middle, and a shaky and abrupt ending, as if Aaronovitch was racing a deadline. The best metaphor might be that he was flying along and someone told him to land the craft, now, and so he set her down none too neatly in the clearest spot he could find.
At least the book answers the question of what Molly is, exactly.
But it leaves a lot of stuff hanging, too. There should have been more to the fact the food often turned people's stomachs, and did they ever figure out who took Stan's stash? Fairies? Hmm. Fairies hopped up on goofballs . . . All that setup for Hugh and his granddaughter, too, that just gets dropped, but maybe that will be revisited in later books. Peter still owes Hugh a gift, after all.
Fewer typographical errors this time, though a few things pricked me, like the "then" that should be "than" on page 38. (I have a list, Ben, if you want the rest.)
Overall, though, another fine book in what is probably my favorite current series.
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