Re-Read: Moon over Soho, Chapters 13 and 14

In our final two chapters, we get a stand-off between Peter and the Faceless Man, then another stand-off between Peter and Nightingale, and also fuck me! Lesley can do magic.

Of the two confrontations in Chapter 13, the one with the Faceless Man was more violent and potentially lethal, but ultimately less exciting for me. We know Peter's not going to die, being the first-person narrator and all, and all we really learn about our villain is that he's posh, magically powerful and evil, all of which we already knew. One thing I do wonder about -- we know that Nightingale didn't know about the Faceless Man's existence or his criminal operations, but how much does the Faceless Man know about the Folly? He clearly knew it exists, since he warned the jazz vampire sisters that somebody from the police was going to come and execute them, but he was genuinely surprised to discover that Peter is a cop. And when tossed out names guessing who might've trained Peter, he never mentioned Nightingale. So I'm guessing that at this point in the series, his info is still pretty limited. He knows the Folly exists, but not much more than that.

The argument between Peter and Nightingale about what to do with Simone and her "sisters" is possibly my favorite part of the whole book. We'd already had plenty of opportunity to see the different ways that Peter and Nightingale approach magic, but here we see the contrast in how the approach police work, and it's just as striking. Peter has grown up with all the modern ideas about law enforcement and rehabilitation that Nightingale has probably only read about in memos. What's more, Peter genuinely believes in these ideas, more than possibly any other cop we've met in the books, including Lesley. He argues his case so passionately, I just wanted to hug him. And he even convinces Nightingale! ...Aaaaand, then the whole point is rendered moot, because Simone and her sisters conveniently off themselves, removing the entire moral dilemma in one fell swoop. Bleh. I'll never stop being disappointed by that ending.

On the other hand, Lesley doing magic will never stop being awesome. How amazing is Lesley? She had no one to train her, no one to explain formae or tell her to make patterns in her mind, all she had to go one was one demonstration from Peter, and she still got it! The amount of focus and determination it must've taken is mind-boggling, especially when you consider that she was going through all sorts of surgeries and medical procedures and probably in a lot of pain the whole time. Lesley, man. She keeps breaking my heart.

And this wraps up book 2, yay! I'm traveling for work over the next two weeks, so we're going to have a bit of a break before book 3. Talk amongst yourselves. :-)