I'm glad that my library's only option for this novella was in the form of an audiobook, for otherwise I would have missed a wonderful performance by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. Aaronovitch, I have heard, likes to test Kobna's mettle with as many regional accents as possible. Kobna does the British voices with authority and to my Canadian tin-ear seemed to do a creditable Southern voice, as well as several flavours of New York.
Augustus Berrycloth-Young, our narrator, seems to me to owe a great deal to P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster. His name (and his nickname Gussie) would fit into one of B. Wooster's tales quite smoothly. As would much of Gussie's vocabulary and his tendency to discount his own intelligence. He admits to wanting merely to live quietly and comfortably with his lover, Lucian, while enjoying the jazz of New York. His valet, Beauregard, isn't the absolute fount of wisdom that Jeeves was, but he is a very able assistant.
The spoke in the wheel of Gussie's routine is the appearance of Thomas Nightingale, seeking a place to stay and magical assistance. As happens when we deal with a person from our past, Gussie falls into his former role as the follower, despite needing a low profile both as magical practitioner and as a gay man when his orientation is considered illegal.
Although starting quite gradually, the author picks up speed until the reader/listener is pulled compulsively along, needing to know if Nightingale and Gussie can achieve their mutual goal without ruining Gussie's existence in the Big Apple. Much of the tension in the story results from dealing with prejudice against Lucian as a black man and against both Lucian and Augustus as gay men.
An interesting peek into the life of Nightingale well before Peter appeared on the scene and when practitioners were more numerous.
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