The Furthest Station is another of those Rivers of London novellas that reminds me just how much fun Aaronovitch can have when he takes a step away from the main storyline. Rather than giving us another enormous magical crisis for Peter Grant to worry about, we get a smaller, more contained adventure featuring some genuine fan favourite side-characters.

And a pre-school river god.

Because apparently that is the sort of sentence that now feels perfectly normal in this universe.

One of the great pleasures here is getting more time with characters who can sometimes get pushed to the edges of the main books. Aaronovitch has built up such an enjoyable supporting cast that it is always a treat when one of them gets to take centre stage. These are characters I already enjoy spending time with, so watching them deal with a supernatural problem of their own feels less like a diversion and more like catching up with friends.

Well, friends who happen to know rather more about London’s supernatural population than is probably healthy.

The story revolves around reports of a ghostly passenger on the Underground, which seems like exactly the sort of problem that should be investigated by the Folly. The Underground is already a slightly uncanny environment at the best of times, so adding a supernatural mystery to it feels entirely appropriate.

There is something particularly effective about using the London Underground as the setting. It is familiar, crowded and relentlessly practical, but there is also something inherently strange about travelling beneath the city through dark tunnels that most people rarely think about. It provides the perfect environment for the Rivers of London universe to reveal another layer of hidden history.

The novella also gives us another reminder that the supernatural world is not simply made up of powerful gods and terrifying entities. Sometimes it is considerably more domestic.

Hence the pre-school river god.

I genuinely love the idea that these ancient supernatural beings can have all the grandeur and mystery associated with mythology while also having to deal with the basic realities of childcare. It is exactly the sort of juxtaposition that makes this series work for me. Aaronovitch can introduce something genuinely magical and then immediately undermine the solemnity with an entirely ordinary problem.

The humour is therefore still very much intact. There is a lovely mixture of supernatural weirdness, London eccentricity and the dry observational comedy that has become such a familiar part of the series. Nothing ever feels like it is trying too hard to be funny. The humour simply grows naturally from the characters and the absurd situations they find themselves dealing with.

That is probably what makes the novella work so well. It does not need to reinvent the entire Rivers of London universe. It simply takes a handful of its most entertaining ingredients, puts them somewhere interesting and lets them get on with things.

And then, of course, there is Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.

He once again gives the audiobook his full treatment, bringing the characters to life with the same care he has shown throughout the series. His handling of the dialogue is excellent, particularly when several very different personalities are sharing the same scene. He manages to keep everyone distinct without turning the performances into caricatures, and his timing with the humour is consistently spot on.

More importantly, he makes the world feel inhabited. Even when the story is dealing with ghosts, river gods and supernatural oddities, there is always a sense that these characters belong here. That is a large part of what makes Holdbrook-Smith such an important part of the audiobook experience.

If I have one complaint, it is that the novella inevitably leaves me wanting more. Once you have a supporting cast this entertaining, it is difficult not to wish they had a little more room to cause trouble.

The Furthest Station is a thoroughly enjoyable little adventure that expands the world without making a song and dance about it. It gives some much loved side-characters their moment, sends us beneath London, introduces a pre-school river god and provides plenty of the humour and supernatural weirdness that make these books so much fun.

It may be a smaller story, but there is plenty here to enjoy.

And frankly, any series that can make a river god with pre-school responsibilities feel completely plausible has earned my attention.

Buy your copy here