The Hanging Tree

The Hanging Tree is the sixth novel in the Peter Grant series by the English author Ben Aaronovitch. Plot The previous book's adventure in Herefordshire left the protagonist Peter Grant deeply involved in a relationship with Beverley Brook, the resourceful young woman who had saved him from captivity by the Faerie Queen. Beverley happens to be the tutelary goddess of Beverley Brook, a small river in South London, and can often be found swimming through its waters; when Peter comes to the bank and calls her name, she might jump naked out of the water, like a salmon, directly into his arms. Peter now spends much of his time – especially his nights – in Beverley's comfortable and spacious house on the riverbank. It is there that he gets the phone call catapulting him into the whirlwind of a new adventure. A bunch of teenagers breaking into a luxurious apartment and holding there a wild party of sex and drugs, ending with one of them dead of an overdose, is a matter for the police – but normally, not for Grant, whose very special police speciality are the cases involving magic. However, one of the teenagers involved was the daughter of a very magical creature – Cecilia Tyburn Thames aka Lady Ty, who is the goddess of the River Tyburn and the older and far stricter sister of Peter's girlfriend. Peter owes Lady Ty a favour for having once saved his life, and she wants her daughter Olivia kept out of trouble with the law – which is not easy for Peter to deliver. Peter's involvement soon grows deeper when an autopsy by pathologists who know about magic reveals that the dead girl, Christina Chorley, had died not only of a drug overdose but also of a wild and excessive use of magic – which can cause a careless practitioner's brain to undergo hyperthaumaturgical degradation, with often fatal results. Peter plunges into the investigation, in partnership with the Muslim policewoman Sahra Guleed – who has no training in magic but makes up for it in her courage and dedication. It is far from easy, since it is needed to interview various very rich and influential people, who resent the police digging into their affairs and who use their connections in the Metropolitan Police's command structure to obstruct the investigation. To further confuse the issue, there come up traces of a long-lost manuscript by Isaac Newton, who secretly founded modern magic.