Book Review: “What Abigail Did That Summer” by Ben Aaronovitch

What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

Well, I, for one, have been waiting eagerly to find out just what young Abigail was up to while Peter Grant was Unicorning out in Ruralshire (Foxglove Summer (2014))!

And we are not disappointed.

As we know, Abigail is a precocious young investigator who has been taken under the wing of the Folly.  When she passes the GCSE Latin—and we know she will crush it—Peter has promised she can start to learn magic.

In the mean time, she is the premier, and probably only, fox whisperer in London or the whole world for all we know.  Not that we really know what these talking foxes are, or where they came from.

What Abigail was up to that summer was a nasty case of disappearing kids.  Some kind of magic pied piper is calling in local kids.  At first, they return after a day or two, though they have no memory of where they were or what happened.

Abigail and her posse of foxes need to figure out what is going on and stop it.

She should tell Nightingale, of course.  But he would stop her from this dangerous mission, and Abigail didn’t get where she is by letting the olds interfere with her investigations.

And she does have resources.  Clever foxes.  Help (?) from the River Fleet.  Young Simon, and even Simon’s scary mother. 

But things get really, really dangerous, really, really fast.

If she survives, Peter will not be best pleased with her for rushing in.  Best make sure he never finds out.

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1. Ben Aaronovitch, What Abigail Did That Summer, Boston, Subterranean Press, 2021.